I have been following the Fitzerald investigation in the
last few weeks. As much as can be followed by the prosecutor
that has so far not done any public appearances nor said a
word about his findings or his strategy.
Following the investigation has thus been limited to
reading the various speculations based on who is being
subpoenaed and the public statements done afterwards. An
other interesting source of information in this puzzle is the
PR campaign from those targeted
by this opaque investigation.
A few interesting links on the subject:
A Cheat
Sheet to get acquainted with the participants.
BillMon:
In other words, instead of blowing sky high, the volcano may
simply snore loudly, roll over, and go back to sleep. And as
Dean points out, since all the testimony Fitzgerald has
collected is covered by the grand jury secrecy laws, we may
never know what he found.
One can easily imagine the howls of protest on the left,
and the smug satisfaction on the right, should this come to
pass. It would be particularly bitter finale for those of us
who all along have regarded the Plame outing as a proxy for
the more fundamental crimes committed along the march to war
in Iraq.
Unlike some (see Justin Raimondo's last two columns, for
example) I've never had more than a forlorn hope that
Fitzgerald would delve into the Niger forgeries, the Chalabi
connection, the Office of Special Plans, the Downing Street
Memos or any of the other investigative leads into the heart
of the neocon conspiracy. Nor have I seen any evidence -- or
even plausible speculation -- that would lead me to believe
Fitzgerald has expanded his probe beyond the immediate matter
at hand: the leak of Valerie Plame's identity and CIA
affiliation. But, like most hardcore Cheney administration
haters, I've been content with the
busting-Al-Capone-for-tax-evasion metaphor. To paraphrase
Donald Rumsfeld: You go to war with the indictments you can
prove, not the ones you'd like to prove.
Jeff
Cohen:
But there's a special reason this scandal is so personally
satisfying to me as a media critic. It's because elite
journalism is on trial. Powerful journalists are playing the
role usually played in these scandals by besieged White House
operatives. They're in the witness dock. It's a New York Times
reporter who is failing to recall key facts...mysteriously
locating misplaced documents...being leaned on to synchronize
alibis.
Elite journalism is at the center of Weaponsgate, and it
can't extricate itself from the scandal. Because, at its core,
Weaponsgate (or, if you're in a hurry, "Wargate") is about how
the White House and media institutions jointly sold a war
based on deception -- and how the White House turned to these
media institutions to neutralize a war critic who challenged
the deception.
A particularly cute quote from Billmon:
Of course, everybody’s free to indulge in their favorite
theories about Whose Behind It All. After all, we are talking
about the era of "dark actors playing their games," to
quote the conveniently dead David Kelly. Like Watergate, this
is one of those cases where paranoid conspiracy theories are
simply alternative rough drafts of history.
A few weeks back, when I was in LA I left the TV on as I
read my email. I catched a stand up comedy show on HBO from a
band called 
The new Manu Chao album 
Mikael Hallendal from Imendio 
