First you start with an investigation. Then you issue an indictment. Next you make your case. Hopefully the case will be made in public, in a court of law. Because if Libby wishes to defend himself, the secret wall that hides Dick Cheney's cabal will be forced open. And that can only be good for American democracy.
Here are quotes over the years on Cheney, his role in the White House and his secretative, power-grabbing and ruthless way of doing things.
The NY Times today:
The indictment provides a rare glimpse inside a vice presidential operation that, under Mr. Cheney, has been extraordinary both for its power and its secrecy..
From Newsday, today:
At Cheney's behest, Libby, 55, turned the vice president's office, usually a backwater, into a large and formidable power center to influence foreign policy. Together they used it mainly for one purpose - to press the case to topple Saddam Hussein, a cause they had pursued since working together at the Pentagon when Cheney was Defense secretary in the early 1990s.
UPI last week:
Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a tight cabal apparatus decided in secret to carry out policies that had left the United States weaker and more isolated in the world, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell told a meeting Wednesday at the New America Foundation.
Story from 60 Min on "The Price of Loyalty":
The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out contrary views. "This is the way Dick likes it," says O'Neill.
John Nichols of the Nation (speaking on Democracy Now) in 2004:
[Cheney] is unbelievably willing to just flat-out say something that's not true.
John Nickels again, in an interview with BuzzFlash in 2004:
Most of what troubles America about the Bush administration -- the arrogance, the intellectual emptiness, the secrecy, the constant spin, the refusal to acknowledge mistakes -- is a reflection of Cheney. As former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill noted, the administration works the way it does because Cheney wants it that way.
John Dean in 2002:
Vice President Dick Cheney is at it again: More secrecy. Now he wants to bury the intelligence information given to President Bush on August 6, 2001 - over a month before the terrorist attacks. Indeed, Cheney wants Congress, far more generally, to keep its investigative nose out of issue of what intelligence the Bush Administration did, or did not, have about terrorism prior to September 11.
From TIME in 2002
Dick Cheney has taken a hard line against the General Accounting Office, refusing its efforts to get information on meetings held by his energy task force. Critics suspect that Cheney is stonewalling to conceal the Administration's links with bankrupt energy giant Enron. But Cheney may be hiding more than that.
Cross posted: Political Porn