Scooting Scooter

Just about everyone on earth now knows that Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on 4 of the 5 counts against him this week. What you may not know is how much the President and Vice-President appreciate Libby taking the fall. Listen to this radio broadcast on NPR. It features Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, discussing the documents that were used in the Libby trial and that have been reviewed by the NSA staff. The full docket of documentation can be found on this NSA website. The most interesting documents are the ones that contain hand-written notes, which serve as a window into the internal "spin" from the White House regarding the situation. If you want to get a good understanding of how our current Vice President thinks, reference this memo, GX 532, which contains hand-written notes by Cheney at the bottom: "Has to happen today. Call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl (Rove)" Cheney wants to use the same tactics here that were used to exonerate Karl Rove in a CIA leak case in 2006. "...Not going to protect one staffer (and) sacrifice the guy ({the Pres} - these letters are crossed out) that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." So, Cheney will throw Libby to the wolves in order to protect "the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder". Nice. Who, exactly, asked "the guy" to stick his neck there? I thought the President had the final decision?