Flash : Bush told Cheney to contradict Wilson!

Can't say it enough: a small but obsessed group of leftists will seize upon anything, anything, anything to flog the Wilson-Plame kerfuffle into something worthwhile. With Scooter Libby's lawyer mounting what appears to be a rather spirited defense (as always, Byron York at NRO is invaluable), and with Karl Rove wriggling off the line and free to continue tormenting Democrats, it appears at present that Patrick Fitzgerald's invesitigation will fall slightly short of President Bush's and Vice President Cheney's impeachment, conviction, and imprisonment.

In any case, it won't be for lack of trying by the nutbars who have kept this story on life support. Yesterday, as reported (in a huge banner headline) on Huffpost, The National Journal reported that President Bush had instructed Vice President Cheney to discredit that clown, Joe Wilson, when Wilson was busy lying in at three different ways about his trip to Niger.

On the face of it, this is nothing remarkable. The President says, "Look, Wilson is lying about us. Get our side out, and make sure people know where this guy is coming from."

Well, it is unremarkable everywhere except the netroots, where at Huffpost, a total of 1,277 comments have been posted, among which are these, which came early and really only count as just warming up:

Only six months before the impeachment proceedings can begin.
By: whitewaterwillie on July 03, 2006 at 05:31pm

That does it. It's time to start impeachment hearings. They outed the very CIA operation keeping tabs on the Iranian Nuclear program. They deserve the same fate as any traitor: death.
By: smootybooty on July 03, 2006 at 05:32pm

If I keep bringing this up, it is because this is the direction of one of the two major political parties. We have entered an atmosphere in which a dorky and competent senator, Joe Lieberman, is not only opposed within his own party for his principled support of the war in Iraq (perfectly fine, said opposition) but vilified as a monster and murderer, then vilified again for hedging his bet against a potential primary loss as potentially dividing his party.

Again: the banana cream pies on the left are a small group, but they are loud, and (at the production level if not the commenters) they're connected to serious money. If Hillary does not claim the Democratic nomination in 2008--a nomination for which she will have saved and prepared for a least a decade by 2008, by far the longest unofficial/official campaign with a specific timetable in the nation's history--these people will be the reason. A samplng, first the more-in-anguish-than-in-anger type:

I am flying my flag - but at half staff.
By: FirstBlowupDollLaura on July 04, 2006 at 11:02am

i'll have my flag upside down
By: BobiuFromCa on July 04, 2006 at 11:13am

Then the old-fashined tinfoil hat type:

call it creeping paranoia, but ya cant dismiss the machiavellian genious of 9/11. What more perfect way to lay claim to broader powers than any president since roosevelt held. evidently 3,000 lives was a small sacrifice to initiate an apotheosis. My dream is to see bush's head explode on live t.v. through pixel manipulation or cranio/arterial thrombosis.
By: JimLarkin on July 04, 2006 at 11:38am

Oh, and by the way, Did you catch the handle on the first one? Separate out the words, and you get "First Blow up Laura." Wonderful.

Yes, and happy Independence Day to you, too.