Libby or Liddy? Same Difference

Kevin Wolf - AP

"In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.)

Scooter Libby is finally indicted. Karl Rove--and potentially Dick Cheney--could be next. Do you know why? Pundits and bloggers from the Left, Right and Center are breathlessly bursting with commentary. But the American public is still dazed and confused. And mostly disengaged.

Understandably so. It's a convoluted story of lies and spies, of foreign places and not-so-public faces. Many average citizens have never heard of most of the players and don't know the back story. How could they? The Bush administration has done everything in its considerable power to keep it out of the public eye. And the media has been, at the least, passively complicit by not shedding clearer light on the whole dirty mess.

Today's indictment is the tip of a conspiracy iceberg that could sink a White House already beginning to resemble the Titanic. Did Scooter Libby direct the operation on his own or as the Vice President's Chief of Staff? Or, on orders from above. And if so, from how far above?

I don't know about you, but this reminds me of Watergate. In the beginning most people didn't understand the complexities behind the break-in, the disinformation campaign or the cover-up. Most had never heard of G. Gordon Liddy, one of Watergate's major players. (Who subsequently found God as a Born Again Christian. Whew. Talk about irony.) Just as most of us today didn't know or care about a man named Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Until now.

Now we have to pay attention. We have to insist on a full investigation of all the facts and all the players. We must demand full disclosure, an end to the lies--and an end to the War in Iraq--or human beings will continue to die needlessly in a travesty of political gamesmanship.

MoveOn.org is trying to get people involved in a Letter To The Editor campaign. MoveOn's email spells it out in plain English.

Today, the Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States was indicted by a federal grand jury.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, announced that Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to a grand jury, lied to FBI agents and obstructed an investigation into the White House cover-up of the lies that led our nation to war in Iraq. Libby has now resigned. Top White House advisor Karl Rove remains under federal investigation.

This is one of the biggest scandals to rock the White House in America's 229-year history.

But The New York Times reported that the Bush spin machine will resort to "attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over legal technicalities." The battle over public opinion begins today. We must remind the country that this scandal isn't about a "technicality"—it's about a White House scheme to cover-up the lies that led our nation into one of the most deadly foreign policy blunders in our nation's history.

That's the meat right there. Forget all the extraneous details and people. If--let's hope When--trials begin, we'll have plenty of time to learn the who, what, when, where and how. For now, focus on the critical central issues. You can count them on one hand:

1. The White House knew for a fact Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction.

2. They lied about that to Congress and the American public, taking us to war in Iraq under false pretenses.

3. They tried to discredit the people who knew the truth.

4. They lied to every agency trying to uncover the truth.

5. They engaged in a massive cover-up about all of the above.

Not so confusing. A dreadful, sickening betrayal of our country by the Bush administration, who use soldiers and CIA operatives and reporters for their own self-serving ends with wanton disregard for Honor, or Truth.

Watergate. Scootergate. Plamegate. Rovegate. No matter what the name game, they're all the gates of Hell.