Why Oh Why Must Patience Be a Virtue?

Your humble correspondent is engaging in some very immature behavior today, because he simply can't contain himself. He has been lying on the floor, kicking his feet and pounding his head and fists and screaming, "I want my indictments NOW!" over and over. Now that the Wall Street Journal has reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is looking into a little White House cabal called the Iraq Group, it's suddenly like Christmas Eve and you saw Dad back a horse trailer up to the garage during the day, telling you it was just straw for the manger in the nativity display. You thought you heard a tiny whinny out there. Is it your pony? How many hours before Christmas morning comes? Check the weather page...sunrise at 6:59am. Ooooooooh, how am I gonna wait that long?

You get the idea. Here's an excerpt to read while I run around the house a few times screaming "Chimpie Chumpie, Chimpie Chumpie, Chimpie Chumpie, FLUSH!!!"

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame
...
Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.

Given that the grand jury is set to expire on Oct. 28, it is possible charges in this case could come as early as next week. Former federal prosecutors say it is traditional not to wait for the last minute and run the risk of not having enough jurors to reach a quorum. There are 23 members of a grand jury, and 16 are needed for a quorum before any indictments could be voted on. This grand jury has traditionally met on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Now, what is the White House Iraq Group, you ask? Let's just flip back to a Washington Post piece from more than two years ago by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus:

The escalation of nuclear rhetoric a year ago, including the introduction of the term "mushroom cloud" into the debate, coincided with the formation of a White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a task force assigned to "educate the public" about the threat from Hussein, as a participant put it.

"Educate the public." Get it? "Mushroom cloud." Think of media buttplugs Judy Miller and Robert Novak. Educate in this new Orwellian world meant "lie to the public in whatever ways required to get support for an invasion." It was a full-fledged propaganda and smear operation designed to twist the media into compliance and destroy anyone who sought to expose the truth, like Joe Wilson.

Who was in the WHIG? Good question, because when you start talking about conspiracy charges, it becomes central to what Fitzgerald is now investigating.

Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities."

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, Card did not mention the WHIG but hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

So can I be blamed for hoping that Rove, Hughes, Matalin, Wilkinson, Calio, Condi Rice, Hadley, and Libby might find themselves on the wrong end of an indictment, or at least under subpeona to testify against Cheney and Chimpie themselves? Oh! Oh! Oh!

Please, please, please! I can't wait any longer! Please Mr. Fitzgerald! I'm gonna hold my breath until you indict those damned little piggies.

Here goes... I want my pony now!!!