The Night Before Christmas

That's what it feels like across the land, as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald readies what with luck will be a set of indictments against Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other members of the illegitimate Bush junta that has occupied the White House since stealing it via judicial corruption in 2000. Already the right wing is preparing its stupid-ass arguments, but they won't stick any more. The American public is slow-witted but finally clued in to what has been done under their name, and they know that outing a CIA agent is treason plain and simple.

The next question, assuming that Rove and Libby get the frog-marching each richly deserves, is what happens to Bush and Cheney. Cheney, as the New York Times reported, was Libby's original source for the information about Valerie Plame. And Bush knew that Rove was covering up the leak investigation from the start. That both men are traitors is plain to see for anyone who cares to take notice. The question is, will the GOP Congress fulfill their Constitutional obligation to impeach them or will the political pressure build via the media to the point where both mass murderers are forced to resign? I suspect rather the latter, with the scandal and its inevitable denouement--President Hastert, anyone?--unfolding sometime next year. Although, with this gang, anything is possible.

There are those who will point out that it's a little strange to see a special prosecutor with the power to bring down a president, and those commentators will be correct. As I wrote in my column this week, however, the system is broken. All we have, the last hope of the republic, is this special prosecutor. If and when we rid ourselves of the Bush plague, one hopes that we won't just "move on" but will take stock of what went wrong with our system of checks and balances and take action, including amending the Constitution to allow minority political parties to bring up impeachment procedings or setting up an independenty judicial means of removing a law-breaking president, to prevent such a disaster from again befalling the world.