alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

March 2, 2007

Today in Wingnuttia

by AltHippo @ 12:08 pm. Filed under Wilson/Plame, wingnuttia

Often I like to play a guessing game. What stories are the right-wing blogs going to cover today? And when there are stories like this one, the question becomes: how are they going to try to knock it down?

Basically, the narrative in the linked article is that Republican Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Domenici tried to pressure US prosecutor David Iglesias to indict Democrats in an effort to influence Wilson’s House race. And, when he didn’t play ball they had him fired. It appears that this wasn’t a unique case, and that politics was involved in replacing one US attorney with a buddy of Karl Rove and may have been involved in replacing another who successfully convicted Republican Representative Duke Cunningham.

Four of the US attorneys who were let go are scheduled to speak before Congress this coming Tuesday. And, they’ll be naming names.

My first assumption would be that the Right Wing Noise machine has got some work to do. Surprisingly, they appear to be ignoring the story. Are they assuming that the narrative is too complicated for Joe Q. Sixpack? Using elected office to reward friends and punish enemies isn’t that tricky a story. I’m just saying I’m surprised.

The usual suspects (NRO, Malkin, Instapundit, Cap’n Ed, Powerline) are following Drudge’s lead and taking a hard look at Hillary Clinton’s surpressed college thesis.

There’s also the story about Jerry Zucker taking on the Wilson/Plame saga as a movie project. It’s newsworthy, but not enough so to overshadow the other Wilson (Heather). It does give the Powerbreathers a chance to regurgitate White House talking points on the Plame affair, though. See how many you can find:

We now know that the White House didn’t leak Plame’s name, the State Department (Richard Armitage) did. And the leak evidently wasn’t illegal, since no one was prosecuted for it. And the CIA, far from being a right-wing bogeyman, has been complicit in the Wilson/Plame farce from the beginning: sending the unqualified and politically-motivated Joe Wilson to Niger at his wife’s urging, not signing him to a confidentiality agreement, not even getting a written report from him, referring the “outing” of desk employee Plame for criminal investigation, etc. No doubt the truth about the Plame matter will be as AWOL from the movie as it is from Variety’s blurb. On the bright side, the idea that any substantial number of people want to sit through a movie about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson strikes me as a fantasy.

Bookmark on del.icio.us

2 Responses to “Today in Wingnuttia”

  1. eRobin Says:
    March 6th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    Thanks for writing about this. I haven’t read TPM on the story and now I’m all caught up with the broad strokes. Is there any chance that Wilson will lose her seat prematurely?

  2. AltHippo Says:
    March 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Ah, eRobin, I was just thinking about you.

    It’s specualtive, and we need to see what comes out of today’s hearing. I think if her involvement goes no further than the one phone call, and it’s more or less as she describes it, then she’ll be sentenced to 2 years of “Republicans will be Republicans.”

    I think what a number of us are looking at is if there’s a bigger web of politicians using the judiciary for partisan ends. If she (as well as other lawmakers) are part of a conspiracy, then that may force her resignation.

Leave a Reply

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-Spam Image

« Just in For Spring: The Anemometer Look
The Wilson Scandal »

[powered by WordPress.]

hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

contact

TBA 2008

The Alternative Hypothesis

the elephants of anwr

issues and insight

capitolists

alt media

sounds

critical resources

flora and fauna

law & order

events

cinema

literati

propaganda

use with extreme caution

internal links:

categories:

search blog:

archives:

March 2007
M T W T F S S
« Feb   Apr »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

other:

95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

comments

Recent Comments

HippoWire

  • Recent Trackbacks:

    • 27 queries. 1.454 seconds