For several years the question was: what manner of man is Patrick Fitzgerald, the U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois? Because he was named by George W. Bush at the behest of U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (no relation) does he have obligatory ties to the national administration? Is he free—as evidently the dithering Scott Lasar, his predecessor was not—to indict and convict key members of the Daley administration and George Ryan who was joined at the hip with the Mayor? The answer is: yes, with respect to George Ryan, yes regarding Daley administration lower-lights. With respect to Daley himself, it’s anyone’s guess. But a clue may well be with the Valerie Plame case.
Since he was also named to probe the source of the leaks on Valerie Plame, was he appointed to run a coverup? Since 2000 there has been little to learn about the secretive district attorney. However with the distinctive turn the White House leak case is taking, it’s clear that Fitzgerald is determined to send Scooter Libby away whether he deserves it or not. Which indicates strongly that one part of the answer is clear: Fitzgerald is a partisan Democrat who is out to do what he can to bring down the Bush administration.
The president’s obvious decision to instruct Vice President Cheney, to authorize Scooter Libby to give reporters important elements of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that disproved the charge from Joseph Wilson that intelligence was manipulated, was, of course, constitutional. It should be “all she wrote” on the Scooter Libby case. The fact that Fitzgerald is dithering on the case, spending vast sums of money on legalisms that are so esoteric they are opaque points to only one thing: Fitzgerald is a partisan. Any objective prosecutor would have washed his hands of the case by now. Fitzgerald is bright, even brilliant, uncorrupt and untouchable—but he is a Democratic prosecutor, make no mistake about it.
My understanding of the Niger uranium procurement problem, which is based primarily on Hersh's Chain of Command, is that when the US released documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency concerning the transactions between Iraq and Niger for review, they were readily identified as forgeries, which would give some credence to allegations of the Bush administration cherry picking intelligence to support the already decided upon military intervention. The cautious (or not cautious enough) leaks suggest the same.
ReplyDeletePutting that aside, when has Fitzgerald publicly discussed his voting history? Maybe it's easier to call Fitzgerald a "Partisan Democrat" than to accept the mistakes of this administration and the nation.