Art, genuine art, is a pleasure not only in the thrill of color and line but in its procedure and materials. In fifteenth-century Florence, an artist named Cennino d

[Item below posted purely as speculation and rumor, from Buzzflash: ]

below, some extremely sensitive information about the impending conclusion of the valerie plame investigations. the sources include two senior members of senate and key staffers; counsel for individuals that have been called before the grand jury; and two journalists taking a lead position in investigating the case. the following represents a composite of the information from those sources.

plamegate coming to conclusion. the investigation has focused mostly closely on vice president cheney and his staff, as well as us ambassador to the un (and former undersecretary of state for arms control) john bolton and his staff. we are told that eight indictments have already prepared, with the possibility of another ten. these indictments include senior white house staff, most notably vice president cheney’s chief of staff scooter libby, fred flights (special assistant to john bolton), and–very surprisingly–national security adviser steve hadley. apparently, libby and hadley have both been told by their lawyers to expect indictments. the indictment of senior bush political advisor karl rove seems highly probable.

most critically, a plea bargain process has evidently been opened with vice president cheney’s lawyer. that does not mean that an indictment is coming. but i’ve some critical background around the issue.

in the past several days, former secretary of state colin powell had a meeting with senator john mccain (R-AZ), primarily about the mccain-sponsored amendment on inserting a rider prohibiting torture onto the us defense budget (a bill which powell has himself been lobbying heavily for, against objections of president bush).

during the meeting, powell recounted to the senator that he had traveled on air force one with bush and cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included ambassador joe wilson’s involvement and identified his wife, valerie plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. powell told mccain that he showed that memo only to two people–president and vice president. according to powell, cheney fixated on the wilson/plame connection, and plame’s status.

powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame’s undercover status.

in his conversation with mccain, powell felt that–at a minimum–there would be a serious shakeup at national security council as a consequence. in particular, vice president cheney would no longer hold a pivotal role in us national security affairs. powell apparently did not discuss the potential of a cheney resignation.

lead prosecutor patrick fitzgerald has apparently been looking at the precedent of formerly indicted nixon vice president spiro agnew. this shows the likely path, because addressing executive immunity and privilege questions would necessarily begin start with a plea-bargain deal that would entail a resignation.
this is all likely to occur within the next week. 28 october (next friday) is the last day of the grand jury, and no requests have been made to extend their session. the investigator is expecting to wrap up by then.

there are enormous implication for what would be the biggest white house shakeup since the iran-contra scandal in the reagan era. president bush’s approval rating at 39% has already led to a significant decrease in policy efficacy with key legislators in congress (which i’ve already discussed at length elsewhere). i’ll spin out the broader policy implications when i have some time to write at greater length, but i wanted to get this out immediately.

one interesting point though–it is worth noting that a parade of senior republican senators have evidently been privately pushing mccain to lobby to be cheney’s replacement. senator lindsey graham (R-SC) has also been mentioned. meanwhile, the white house has already been developing countermeasures–notably including senior white house officials privately voicing president bush’s disappointment in karl rove’s involvement in the case, calling it ‘misconduct.’ an urgent search for a rove replacement is already underway.”

[This column ran in the PG Sentinel this week:]

Well, the man in the White House is nothing if not transparent. His two picks for Supreme Court justices have solely one, solid, take-it-to-the-bank recommendation, that they are both joined at the hip to George W. Bush. The ties may be euphemized as “loyalty,” but they are more tangible than intangible, business and professional more than “ideological,” and more direct than those of any previous president in a century, so far as I know, to his Supreme Court justices. After all the hullabaloo about what a “conservative” pick might do to the highest court in the land, Bush’s brazenly self-serving choices corroborate what a guy I knew in Texas said: “I think what George W. Bush stands for is mainly George W. Bush.”

This president has chosen two individuals who can be counted on, when the chips are down, to help broker an out for him in an impeachment. In fact, it looks as though he is successfully installing two individuals who would willingly smooth and help him arrange a super-flight, for the Bush team and assorted relatives, etc., to Saudi Arabia, “to spare the nation the agony of a long impeachment process.”

Obviously the credentials of John Roberts outweigh those of Harriet Miers, although Roberts’ credentials do not include actual courtroom experience as a barrister. But the factor of judicial independence is no more present in his background than it is in Miers’. A man who seems to have been grooming himself for the high court since the beginning of his government legal career, he also has the distinction of having ruled in favor of the administration while being interviewed for the top job. The case, furthermore, concerned Iraq, the administration’s discredited imperialism. Roberts ruled pro-Iraq-imperialism, in effect, while his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, is partner in a firm touting its ability to boost business in Iraq. (Go to www.pillsburylaw.com; click on “Iraq reconstruction.” Ms. Roberts’ particular areas of expertise include satellite technology and outsourcing.) By the way, the firm also touts its contacts in government.

There is something awfully predictable about all this. But in any case, apparently we have a judge who can be counted on not to recuse himself.

I fortunately ignored all the predictions about whom Bush would name to the court. But when one of the television networks provided a short list of names and photos just before Bush’s announcement, something about Roberts’ slightly smiling face caused me to say, “That’s the one.”

Again ignoring the predictions and commentary following Rehnquist’s death, I knew that Bush would name someone who would work primarily for him rather than for the nation. That has been his pattern with every appointment from press secretaries to heads of agencies. That he was so blatant as to name someone who has never even been a judge, though, did surprise me somewhat. Arguably the nomination of an individual who was in effect Bush’s own lawyer – given the way this White House operates – goes even farther than the nomination of an individual with a direct stake in Iraq business. (Roberts’ financial investments include his wife’s firm.)

Undoubtedly Bush, Roberts and Miers differ as individuals. Aside from differences in age, gender or level of education, two of them are much harder-working than the man who nominated them.

Such attributes as these three individuals do share, though, are uniformly scary. Whatever their actual religious practices or belief systems, they are apparently comfortable with both relentless self-aggrandizement and relentless domination of other people, domestically and abroad. None of them has demonstrated an ability or willingness to check abuses of entrenched power. And none of them has been held to any standard of taste or judgment, as the weird White House penchant for staged nomination announcements demonstrates again.

Most destructive of all for the immediate future of this country, however, is that all three seem to share a vested interest in the inordinate expansion of one branch of one government.

There is one comforting thought, such as it is, in all this. Even neo-cons and White House shills like William Kristol, George F. Will and Charles Krauthammer, the chief media supporters of administration imperialism, are now throwing his nominee overboard. Splash. They may not defeat her, but they have been impelled to distance themselves. That Bush could risk consequences like these means that his key pattern is getting too transparent to ignore. And transparent means desperate.

[This is the column that appeared in my local paper, the Prince George’s Sentinel, on Thursday (Sept. 22). The day following, a bus carrying elderly people from an assisted living facility – the one my mother stays in — was thrust into the Texas highways with hundreds of thousands of other vehicles fleeing Houston at the same time. The bus exploded and burned up, killing 24 of the elderly and injuring several others. ]