Phillips writes fascinating books and using interesting historical parallels. His observation that fundamentalism stunts national development is dead on. Even more interestingly, he notes that fundamentalism seems to arise everywhere where cultures and governments become increasingly unable to solve their problems. Faith-based solutions are easier than thought-based ones.

Uh, excuse me, but...I hate to be the one to step in on your changing the subject but...someone named Rove just got off Scot Free...I say Scot Free...Uh, are you out there? You have wasted more space carrying the spear for Wilson/PlameIV than anyone online. Pull up to the table. Crow is served.

Finest -- Crow is not served. I don't know enough of the details about Rove getting off to understand why Fitzgerald has chosen this course, but I will. The fact remains that Rove, while not going to be indicted, was complicit in this mess -- and that is clear from the filings that Fitzgerald has made.

On the bigger issue of whether this is positive for Bush, it clearly is. Bush's team would have been seriously gut-punched with a Rove indictment, and that's no longer in the cards. Libby is, however -- and there's more that we'll see unfold on this story.

Best regards,

Steve Clemons

Finest >"...Crow is served."

As Steve posted Crow is NOT served & anyone that suggests it is has NO CLUE about what is happening in the C.I.A. Outing case

That Kool-Aide you`ve been drinking is very rancid & must have affected your reasoning abilities

Read the Luskin release & try to engage your brain-housing group; "formally advise" does not mean "letter" or "phone call"

NO ONE outside the office of Patrick Fitzgerald has any clear idea what he is doing & his office doesn`t play via press release unlike certain ReThug players

IF you are actually serious about following this case you would FIRST research how Mr. Fitzgerald does cases. There are plenty of public source materials to get a good idea IF you wanted to

Otherwise get lost

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw

looking forward to the online audio...

Would you prefer Heckel or Jeckel? Soup's on.

So.... Rove didn't lie to the public and the President when he claimed he had nothing to do with outing Valerie Plame?

I dunno about that. As far as the public goes, its pretty clear he lied through his teeth, lied some more, and then came back and lied again. Maybe he didn't lie to the President, but if he didn't, don't that make the President an accessory and a liar?

In any case, that don't change the real issues. Valerie Plame was an NOC CIA Agent working on Weapons of Mass Destruction issues in the middle east.

The White House burned a CIA agent, burned her front company, and burned her network, all to slam a guy who was rude enough to point out that what the President was saying was not true. Who knows how many people in Iran and elsewhere were imprisoned or executed for their connections to Plame after she got outed? Who knows how far wmd investigations were set back? Doesn't seem like the White House gave a rats ass about the potential consequences, which could well have been catastrophic.

Certainly, it sent all kinds of good messages. That the White House was willing to throw professionals under the train for politics, the safety of Americans isn't as important as smearing someone who steps out of line, that hardball includes not just your target but his family including women and children, that intelligence agencies and their people take second place to gamesmanship, to sell out its integrity for revenge, that free speech wasn't free and disagreement invited payback, that the President has some sort of right to lie whenever he feels like it... That's so classy, Finest. LOL. Really shows your character.

And finally, lets be very clear about it all. What the Plame/Wilson thing is really about is this:

BUSH LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

You want to talk about eating crow? LOL. There's 2500 servings of crow for you. Dig in, the corpses keep on coming.

Den, thanks for putting this so well.

I am a Republican and am totally opposed to this Administration precisely for the reasons you lay out with respect to the Wilson/Plame matter.

For this Administration, partisan gain matters more than national interest, and consistently so.

More than being simply repugnant, at its core this outlook and practice are profoungly and disturbingly unpatriotic.

in January of 2009, Scooter Libby will get pardoned. I am not approving or disapproving of that, but that is what is going to happen.