To be fully honest, I really haven't been following the whole Plame investigation closely. Nor am I any sort of expert on the Supreme Court. I will leave the nitty gritty details on both those matters to people who really care about them, and really know something about each. However, my world just wouldn't be complete unless I said something. So instead I offer just a few thoughts on both matters now, while reserving the right to ramble on even more on either of these topics at a later date.

Several things have struck me with the Libby indictment. The first is the blatant attempt by the media to turn this into some sort of Watergate for Bush. Take this MSNBC banner that was on Friday for a good chunk of time:



The first headline points to this story detailing the indictment with some basic facts about the whole investigation, but then tried to pull in every controversial liberal talking point in existence from the Iraq War, to WMD's, to Haliburton. The second headline points to this story talking about how Bush is carrying with the business of running the country despite what happened (shocking I know). To me the headline placement and wording is pretty disgustingly partisan. The suggestion (especially if you never click the link) is that lying, cheating, and covering stuff up is pretty much just Business as Usual for the Bush White House.

The other thing that struck me about the Libby indictment were the possible penalties involved:

The grand jury indictment charged Libby with one count of obstruction of justice, two of perjury and two of making false statements. If convicted on all five, he could face as much as 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.

Let's think about this for a moment. He's not being charged with actually leaking a damn thing, nor committing any crime other than lying to cover someone's ass, and well... that's it. Basically, he's being charged with the exact same sort of thing as Martha Stewart was. I've heard of murderers and rapists that have gotten lighter punishments. I'm not suggesting that this should go unpunished. Government officials lying to investigators should be punished. But 30 years? You're kidding right?

Of course the political brilliance of publishing this news on a Friday which is a very slow news day is obvious. Even more obvious is the announcement of a new Supreme Court nominee. That is the second step in our Washington two step. From what I've read on other blogs that know more than I do on the matter such as Ann Althouse and The Volokh Conspiracy... it seems as though conservatives may have gotten exactly what they wished for. And so now we'll have confirmation hearings that mean nothing, where Senators stump on old faithful topics because this guy will get confirmed. Is anyone else recoiling at the idea of hearing Ted Kennedy trying to sound like he knows anything about the Supreme Court while trying not to sound drunk... again? Talk about a scary thought for Halloween.