Jack McCoy and the HopHead Cheerleaders

What has watching "Law and Order" for too many years done for me and countless other Americans?

I think it's given us far too much faith in the goodness and righteousness within our legal system. It's also blinded us to the reality that plea-bargaining and sneaky criminal defense lawyers with lots of cash actually define the system.

This will be a short, ugly post, because there's a small, cone-hatted biped trying to steal my underwear and I have to get up early in the morning. But let me just say that I'm not one of the champagne drinking crowd. I'd add "yet," but I'm not convinced I should.

Here are a few names for you: Bush v. Gore. Thomas White. Ken Lay. Ahmed Chalabi. The Anthrax Killer. Katrina Leung. Bill Frist. "Bugman" DeLay. If I knew how to get to Findlaw or Nexis/Lexis, I'd make that list longer. Much, much longer.

I've followed the Plame thang for quite some time. I remember my early days over at other places where I railed about things like "treason" and a culture of corruption "worse than Watergate." I still do, on a good day. But I've entered the realm of No Faith Left. It's like Left Behind, only more radical and less hopeful. And in my NFL, the cheerleaders are all dykes and busy smoking dope with the bus drivers; they've ceased to care about the game or who wins.

Fitz seems like a good guy, and from what I understand, he's taken on Big Dogs in the past and won. The Mob. The other mob. Various gov't officials. He's a republican. People talk about him like he's an Untouchable. All I know is that he's no Ken Starr, and has been pretty good controlling leaks and keeping all of us guessing.

But the facts are bleak to me. Do you expect a Republican-controlled Congress to call for impeachment? I don't. Do you expect the ~22 Dems voting for Roberts to step up with the noo-kwoo-lar option if this proves to touch Bush and Cheney directly? I don't. Do you expect CNN and the NYT to offer daily, in-depth, factually based coverage of this in ways most time-pressed Americans can understand? Again, me- not so much. Do you think that this administration will waver from its pattern of obfuscation, denial, and subject changing, and focus on responding to these (as yet only speculative) indictments honestly? Hahahahahahaha.... Did I mention Roberts, Bush v. Gore and expensive lawyers yet?

Anyway, this isn't a TV show. Jack isn't going to swoop in like a hawk and grab a fat, quivering mass of obviously guilty prey that Lenny has just broken in the LT's conference room. More importantly, this case represents a set of threads that, if pulled firmly, would unravel practically the entire empowered Federal gov't. There's hardly a Republican in DC today who isn't somehow connected to this scandal and cover-up.
Dems are included in the list of lying, guilty parties.

When I first read the law about outing spies, I was shocked. "This is treason," I said to myself, "actual, hanging worthy treason." Don't give me the niceties about how she was a desk jockey or not active or whatever- 41 passed this law out of love for his spooks, and all their connections not protected by Draconian pro-intel laws in our country. Frankly, and I'm going CT here but fuck it, I've always felt that there's another game here, one far beyond the Niger claims and war rationale. On a good day I wonder if she wasn't outed because she uncovered proof that the Bushies themselves were in bed with some terra organization, and that the Bushies were helping them out with getting the naughty devices and substances in exchange for a future 911 or other “useful” terrorist activity. Even if that's fantasy (it probably is) I still think that what was done to her and the CIA in general before and after the war represents a major change in the power structure in DC. For once, somebody fucked over the intel community...and got away with it. Think about what that means.

Good luck to Fitz, and eat shit to Libby, Rove and any of the WHIG, DIA, or any other chickenhawk cluster that got us into the qWagmire. What have they lost again? Billions and billions are missing, n'est pas? I wonder how many James Baker III approved law firms that will buy? In an honest court, with unimpeachable jurors of great intelligence, it would still take years, perhaps as many as five of six, to sort all this out. Does Fitz have an honest court, funding to follow through, and enough “independence” to bring all the indictments that a real investigation would eventually produce? Again, I’m not confident.

Short Version: Do you expect a Bush appointee to bring down the most power-mad, corrupt, unable-to-admit-they're-wrong administration ever, all by himself? And half the remaining federal government with them?

It's domestic beer for me kids, and for a while. Please- save this post and make me eat it if I'm wrong. But honestly, I'm fairly sure we won't see more than a couple of "mid-level" flunkies go down, perhaps Rove or Libby but most likely not both. Certainly not the Chimp or Crashcart- we'll be at war with North Korea before that happens.

In a perfect world, all I've written is wrong, everyone guilty I've just named is in jail, and I have to choose between Angie Harmon and Elisabeth Rohm as girlfriends. But I'm pretty sure at least 2 of those 3 are not going to happen, ever. Let's just hope that I have to stay celibate.