USA Today's Founder's Tough Words on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Et Al

I'm in total agreement here: we can talk all we want about a trial but Bush and Cheney can't afford to let Libby or his lawyers get anywhere NEAR a courtroom. So what does this mean?

From Al Neuharth:

We'll never know whether I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is guilty of lying to a grand jury as charged.

Despite Libby's not guilty plea at Thursday's preliminary hearing, President Bush and Vice President Cheney can't afford to let him go to trial. So they'll offer him the moon to plea bargain for the best deal he can cut.

Testimony in a trial likely would show that Bush, Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were hell bent to invade Iraq, reasons be damned. When their phony cover that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was blown, they hunkered down against anyone who told the truth about their trickery.

Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, did that. So, possibly coached by his boss Cheney, Libby told reporters that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. “Outing” a covert CIA operative is against the law. She had once served in that role and was still a CIA employee.
Those leaks and the administration's persistent deceptions put Bush and his crowd in company with these other recent presidents:

•Republican President Richard Nixon.
•Democrat President Bill Clinton.

Nixon lost his job for trying to cover up a break-in at Watergate by his cronies. Clinton lost his reputation when he lied about uncovering himself for Monica Lewinsky. But both were minor-league Pinocchios whose lies hurt mostly themselves.

Bush, Cheney and company are major league make-believers who have brought immeasurable and irreparable harm to innumerable others with their Iraq misadventure. Cost: Tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Every day they continue their deceptive game, la Libby, adds to their shame.

Who'd a thought USA Today would become the conscience of the nation? But in the last few years, Al's provided it. I'm surprised. Pleasantly.