Simmering The Slime

Joe Conason has a nice piece here about how the right is preparing the ground to slime Pat Fitzgerald. Now that Senator Roberts has narrowed the scope of his interest in the Plame case, I think it’s pretty clear that the little trial balloon about hearings (and my speculation about them granting immunity) was premature. The Dem Senators understood that better than I did — they are keeping the heat on Roberts to hold hearings that he now quite clearly doesn’t want to have. It really didn’t make sense to pre-emptively slime Fitzgerald or haul Rove before the committee. They don’t know what Fitzgerald has. And if I’m not mistaken, the special prosecutor, unlike the Independent Counsel, has no requirement to file a report if there is no indictment.

Therefore, if Fitzgerald doesn’t indict, there is every reason to believe that all we’ll ever find out is that … no law was technically broken. The Republicans have wisely decided to back off at least until they know what they are dealing with. Why make him mad?

But if Fitzgerald does indict somebody — and the spectre of a trial looms — you can bet they’ll be ready to try to bury him.

.