samir: Fitzgerald, at the press briefing, said "I do not expect to file any additional charges", which is perplexing some as Libby is widely believed to be a fall guy. But what he said is a far cry from "case closed". And if he were on to something, why would he publicize it now? Given, it's not his nature but to shoot straight, maybe he has a compelling reason to be vague on this particular matter? Definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
"It's sad that we had a high level official, a person who worked in the office of the vice president, obstructed justice and lied under oath", stated Fitzgerald. Yes, sad indeed. And thanks for doing your job to help make sure he didn't get away with it.
abraham: I'm not impressed by the conviction. It obviously--at least at this point and at this trajectory--will have no effect on current politics. Or perhaps I just expect too much too soon. The day after the verdict hit I decided to see what the talking idiots on the major news networks were saying.
My first stop was MSNBC, since I find it the least offensive of all the major cable news channels. It was a few minutes before the hour. They were talking about some typically frivolous subject, which escapes me currently. Oh yeah, it was a kidnapping somewhere in Florida or where ever, i.e. something that used to just be local news, but since the news networks are tasked with keeping the American public on edge and in fear of fellow citizens, they elevate and amplify these uselessly insignificant local issues to national importance. They then cut to a school shooting (big deal). They then went to commercial right before the hour struck, at which time I figured they would open with the Libby verdict. So they came back and the breaking news of the hour was: The Lottery. I swear. I then switched over to CNN and they were discussing the school shooting. I don't consider Fox to be even remotely an organization that practices journalism so at that point I just turned the TV off, and thus ended the 6 minutes of TV news that I've watched since the raping of Lebanon last year when I permanently tuned out the major news networks. The analysis, I suppose, was left to the Chris Matthews and the Wolf Blitzer's (SPIT!) and the other braying idiots that discuss the day's topic to death before moving on to the next filler in between advertisements.
You'd think people would be in the streets demanding the blood of Cheney. Or I guess that's what I think would be a reasonable reaction to the verdict. Perhaps I'm extreme. But even if this does somehow turn into a rallying point for the Dummycrats, and they open investigations and pursue the matter, how much and how fast will they be able to move this before late January 2009, when Bush is just about to leave office (assuming my dreams are shattered and he isn't already impeached or on trial at The Hague by then) and in his last demonstration of contempt for American values pardons himself and all his minions for the 8 years of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and Constitutional violations over which they presided? Call me a cynic, but I'm starting to fear that we will see no justice, at least not in the traditional sense that the American system of justice used to provide. No, I think we'll need something akin to the French Revolution to correct the corruption that America has faced for the past two decades of incompetence and malfeasance that has embodied our elected (and otherwise) administrations.
samir: Sounds more like your not impressed with the reaction to the conviction rather than the conviction itself. These guys have made trampling the gray areas of our system law a (bad) art form. Undoing the damage they've done may not be possible but the way I see it, it's convictions like this and guys like Fitzgerald that are the only way to do it without resorting to the same despicable tactics that the guilty are so fond of.
