Haven't you been paying attention? Nothing that Cheney's office and subordinates did was criminal, because if they did it, then that makes it NOT a crime. If they did it, it had to be done to keep us all safe from the dangers of spontaneous combustion... or something. You can thank them now.
In fact, I'm gonna break this down very simply. 1) Bob Novak breaks Plame's cover in a article he wrote. 2) Plame goes balistic and claims its retribution for he husbands report on yellowcake. 3) Congress appoints Fitzgerald to investigate the leak. 4) Fitzgerald confronts Novak, Novak divulges his source as Richard Armitage. 5) Fitzgerald asks Armitage to remain quiet so he can conitune the investigation (I assume to see if he can trace it all the way back to Cheney). 6) During the investigation, Libby gets involved in a "he-said-she-said" and is indicited and convicted of Perjury and OoJ. 7) Fitzgerald annouces the end of the investigation and states that there was no tie to the VP's office and no one else we be charged, essntially saying that Libby was convicted of covering up for no reason. 8) Richard Armitage states on national TV that he was the source of the original leak and appologizes.
Okay everyone here agrees Fitzgerald was originally appointed to investigate a LEAK. What did Congress originally appoint Ken Starr to investigate?
What was the make up of congress when fitzgerald was assigned to investigate the leak. Was it still a majority Republican Congress? So republicans had a witch hunt for republicans like Starr's witch hunt?
Ken Starr was originally assigned to investigate White Water. When he found out that were no crime committed by the Clintons in WW, he hung around for several years until he could get Clinton on Perjury and OoJ. Pat Fitzgerald was originally assigned to investigate the leak of Plame's identity. When he found out that there was no crime committed by the VP's office with the leak, he hung around for several years until he could get Libby on Perjury and OoJ. For the record, I thought the Clinton trial was a stupid waste of money, too.
Who knows why Fitzgerald eventually brought charges against Libby. He may have just been pissed off at the guy for lying. But Fitzgerald could have still brought charges against Rove. The bottom line I'm getting at is that the Starr situation is not a comparison because Starr was clearly working for Republicans against a Democratic president. Fitzgerald was assigned by Republicans to investigate republicans. he had his choice of three different components of the whitehouse, rove, cheney, or powell. he chose cheney's office. why? who knows.
For what? Rove wasn't the leak. I think the Starr comparison is valid. Both prosecuters went vastly outside the scope of their orginal jobs. I don't think this is a Republican or Democrat witch hunting thing. I think that in both cases you had a Special Prosecutor that felt they had to "get" someone in order to justify the money the American people were sinking into their investigations.
Starr's conviction was in no way related to whitewater. Fitzgerald's conviction was directly related to The Plame leak.
do you honestly think that: investigation of LEAK -> charging coverup of LEAK = investigation of WW -> charging coverup of BJ
You're absolutely correct. Libby covered up a non-crime. Clinton perjured himself in a sexual harrassment lawsuit and was later cited for contempt of court. What he did was much worse.
It assigned to Special Prosecuter to investigate a POTENTIAL crime. It turned out to not be a crime. The same as Janet Reno assigned Ken Starr to investigate a potential crime.
Not true. It turned out that Fitzgerald didn't feel he had enough evidence to convince a jury of someone's guilt. That is very different from saying a crime was or wasn't committed.
