Scotty Beams Up....

Not only are the rats deserting the Ship of State, but some are squealing once safely away.

The latest, and maybe loudest, squeal comes in the form of a pre-publication excerpt from a memoir by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan.... "WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington," to be published next April....

"I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information, and five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

McClellan says he was in that position because he trusted the president: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Restore the credibility of The Decider and the White House by suggesting to the press day after day that Rove and Libby had no involvement in the publication of the name of covert CIA operative Valarie Plame.

While McClellan did finally take this baby step toward full disclosure.... these events happened in the summer of 2003. He's coming forward only now, after the Plame investigation and Libby's conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice, and after Bush pardoned Libby. Where's Scotty been?

This story just broke, the shock waves are just hitting. It's impact while as yet unknown could very well affect the upcoming elections and end careers. Stay tuned....

DC Sopranos Sing

..."sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder."

Is this a mob boss fingering his pigeon on the Sopranos?

In a way, yes....the political equivalent.

This message was given by "Tony" Cheney to "The Ba-Da-Boom Crew" instructing them that the fall guy for the leak that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent would be "Scooter" Libby, and not "Turd Blossom" Rove.... "Big Boss" Bush's front man.

Oh yes, Cheney is the capo trying to shield Bush from any connection to the crime.... the falsifying of intelligence that took us to war in Iraq and the perjury committed by Libby in trying to cover for his bosses. But the cops, in the form of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, are slowly closing in.

You have to look no further than the response to a query posed by Wolf Blitzer (CNN) to Cheney about Cheney's pregnant gay daughter to see the real "Tony".... the stone wall and threatening-glare shot at a genuflecting Blitzer says it all. Archconservative Cheney's intimidation and refusal to discuss an obvious political paradox is exactly how he and his back room boys operate.

But, these political mobsters, despite all their strong-arm tactics, are being sucked into the legal vortex of Libby's perjury trial, exposing the corruption swirling through the Bush administration.

Matthew Cooper, Time magazine's White House reporter in the summer of 2003, told jurors yesterday that President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, was the first administration official to privately tell him that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson was married to a CIA officer. (WaPo)

Looks like Turd Blossom is fingered after all.... now we want to hear all of the Sopranos sing!