Has anyone noticed that the coverup worked?

In his impressive presentation of the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby
last week, Patrick Fitzgerald expressed the wish that witnesses had testified
when subpoenas were issued in August 2004, and "we would have been here in
October 2004 instead of October 2005."

Note the significance of the two dates: October 2004, before President Bush
was reelected, and October 2005, after the president was reelected. Those dates
make clear why Libby threw sand in the eyes of prosecutors, in the special
counsel's apt metaphor, and helped drag out the investigation.

As long as Bush still faced the voters, the White House wanted Americans to
think that officials such as Libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney had
nothing to do with the leak campaign to discredit its arch-critic on Iraq,
former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

And Libby, the good soldier, pursued a brilliant strategy to slow the
inquiry down. As long as he was claiming that journalists were responsible for
spreading around the name and past CIA employment of Wilson's wife, Valerie
Plame, Libby knew that at least some news organizations would resist having
reporters testify. The journalistic "shield" was converted into a shield for the
Bush administration's coverup.

Bush and his disciples would like everyone to assume that Libby was some
kind of lone operator who, for this one time in his life, abandoned his usual
caution. They pray that Libby will be the only official facing legal charges and
that political interest in the case will dissipate.

You can tell the president worries that this won't work, because yesterday
he did what he usually does when he's in trouble: He sought to divide the
country and set up a bruising ideological fight. He did so by nominating a
staunchly conservative judge to the Supreme Court.
Judge Samuel Alito is a red flag for liberals and red meat for Bush's socially conservative base. Alito has a long paper trail as a 15-year veteran of a court of appeals and a strong right-wing reputation. This guarantees a huge battle that will serve the president even if Alito's nomination fails: Anything that "unites the base" and distracts attention from the Fitzgerald investigation is good news for
Bush.

That is why Senate Democrats -- and one hopes they might be joined by some
brave Republicans -- should insist that before Alito's nomination is voted on,
Bush and Cheney have some work to do.

The Fitzgerald indictment makes perfectly clear that the White House misled
the public as to its involvement in sliming Wilson and talking about
Plame.

Bush needs to tell the public -- yes, the old phrase still applies -- what
he knew about the operation to discredit Wilson and when he knew it. And he
shouldn't hide behind those "legalisms" that Republicans were so eager to
condemn in the Clinton years.

The obligation to come clean applies, big-time, to Cheney, who appears at
several critical points in the saga detailed in the Fitzgerald indictment. What
exactly transpired in the meetings between Libby and Cheney on the Wilson case?
It is inconceivable that an aide as careful and loyal as Libby was a rogue
official. Did Cheney set these events in motion? This is a question about good
government at least as much as it is a legal matter.

Fitzgerald has made clear that he wants to keep this case going if
doing so will bring us closer to the truth. Lawyers not involved in the case
suggest that the indictment was written in a way that could encourage Libby,
facing up to 30 years in prison, to cooperate in that effort.

But there is a catch. If Libby, through nods and winks, knows that at the
end of Bush's term, the president will issue an unconditional pardon, he will
have no interest in helping Fitzgerald, and every interest in shutting up. If
Bush truly wants the public to know all the facts in the leak case, as he has
claimed in the past, he will announce now that he will not pardon Libby. That
would let Fitzgerald finish his work unimpeded, and we would all have a chance,
at last, to learn how and why this sad affair came to pass.