Is Rove Taking a Bullet for Cheney?

I hate to get fooled again, and you've got to hand it to those Bush fuckers for being able, like good conjurers, to constantly divert our attention to something "big" while they slip something even bigger behind us.

But then it occurred to me that no one seems to be connecting the Valerie Plame Wilson affair, which involved the CIA, to the allegations that Dick Cheney visited the CIA offices at Langley as many as fourteen times, something that has been called unprecedented. Word was that he had been over there pressuring analysts to spin things the way the White House wanted for war, a war in which the chief beneficiary is the Halliburton company. Cheney, after serving as Secretary of Defense under Bush I then became CEO of Halliburton before becoming vice president. During his tenure as Secretary of Defense, he oversaw a massive privatization scheme in the military which set up the sort of transfer of duties and massive amounts of cash to private contractors.

So the question is this: is Rove taking a bullet for Dick? Is this a distraction from the real source of leaks to the press about Plame and others? Is it feasible that Dick Cheney would really have no idea who Joe Wilson was, even though it was Wilson who was acting ambassador to Iraq before the first Gulf War?

Just wondering. Someone else is wondering too, over at After Downing Street Memo. Go give it a read. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is purported to be a serious and thorough fellow and this observation by Justin Raimondo may prove rather prescient about what Fitzgerald is really after now:

If, however, Fitzgerald can prove there was a conspiracy inside the government to collect and selectively reveal classified information in order to crush political opponents, and shape U.S. policy, then the charges could be much more serious. By all accounts, the Plame investigation is said to be widening, and I would venture to say that by this time it is wide enough to include charges of espionage.

Indeed, against charges of actual espionage for political gain at the expense of national security, Rove's little leak would seem puny. Perhaps the plan is to throw Karl to the wolves, then pardon him and hope that Fitzgerald can't make any other charges stick.

Or maybe Cheney will conveniently croak just like William Casey did in time to damage the investigation into Iran-Contra. Maybe that's why Dickie hasn't been seen much lately. Maybe he's reading the writing on the wall and realizes that his number's up if he gets exposed as the real culprit here.

I wish I knew, but I'm still optimistic that these bastards are going to go down hard.