[Peace-discuss] Plame game and clot plot

[C. G. Estabrook]

Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts. So here's a scenario:

The administration concluded that this would happen and was aware of 
Fitzgerald's indications that Cheney was the real target of the 
prosecution of Libby, although Fitzgerald now says the investigation is 
"inactive."  But remember that when VP Agnew was found taking bribes in 
the VP office in 1973, his resignation was negotiated.

So it's announced that the VP, with his bad heart, has a blood clot -- a 
result of his around-the-world tour designed to shore up the struts of 
the war policy (such as Musharraf).  On this basis he will resign.  Bush 
will appoint Condoleezza Rice as VP (as Nixon appointed Gerald Ford), 
and the neocon/war party will loose their primary seat in the government.

To make up for that -- to appease the neocons -- a rabid neocon, Eliot 
Cohen, was appointed last week as counselor to the State Department (see 
the article in today's counterpunch.org) -- perhaps as a "balance" to 
the move of "realist" war criminal John Negroponte to the State 
Department from the job as Director of National Intelligence (which he 
left, according to Seymour Hersh, because he was undercut by Cheney and 
a Pentagon faction).

The factions (attack-Iran vs. don't) will remain roughly balanced in the 
administration, and the question will remain unresolved, but the 
departure of Cheney will make the attack a bit less likely, owing to the 
ascendance of Rice and the other Pentagon faction (cf. the flag officers 
who leaked their threat to resign to the Telegraph/UK last week).

In judging this scenario, you might recall that I predicted that Libby 
would walk...  --CGE