Boot Scooter Boogie

by digby

I’ve been riveted to the FDL Libby liveblogging all morning, and if you have an interest in this case you should go over and check it out. Fascinating stuff. The prosecution is pretty much saying that Cheney directed Libby to do whatever he did. It’s pretty amazing. (Atrios has the transcript of David Shuster’s MSNBC report here.)

But I was most intrigued by the fact that it looks like Libby is throwing Karl Rove under a bus — and we are getting a look inside a White House that is divided between the VP’s power center and the president. Very interesting.

MSNBC had a chyron that said Libby’s lawyer put it this way: “Libby was sacrificed to protect Karl Rove.”

Oooh.

From Marcy Wheeler’s liveblog:

Mr. Libby was not concerned about losing his job. He was concerned about being set up. He was concerned about being the scapegoat.

Mr. Libby said to the VP, “I think the WH, people are trying to set me up, people want me to be the scapegoat. people in the WH want me to protect Karl Rove.” [Swopa–you owe me dinner.]

Cheney made notes of what Libby said. Notes show Libby telling VP that he was not involved in leak. [oops, Wells, accidentally said, “not involved in leak to Karl Rove.”

Cheney’s note: “Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”

The person who was to be protected was Karl Rove. Karl Rove was President Bush’s right hand person. Karl Rove was the person most responsible for making sure Bush stayed in office. He had to be protected. The person who was to be sacrificed.

And here I always thought the VP’s office was part of the White House.

I suspect that when the history is written we will find more and more proof that Vice President Cheney has been running a shadow government from the very beginning and that much of the malfeasance of this era is a result of incompetent and competing power centers vying for supremacy. It begins to explain the unprecedented level of faulty reasoning and epic mistakes coming from the one administration.

It’s kind of funny that Cheney is calling Rove incompetent in this matter. When it comes to lying and obstruction (the skills required for this cover Cheney’s ass operation), Karl Rove is a consummate professional and Scooter Libby is a joke.

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