Don Surber gave words to a thought that’s been banging around in my brainpan since Friday:

It must be sad to see a friend depart the White House, but scandals happen. If anything, Bush emerges from this investigation with a clean bill of health. So does Rove. They faced the proctology of federal prosecution and survived. (h/t Memeorandum)

I’m not sure how thankful I am that the words he gave me included “proctology,” but the image is apt. Fitzgerald is a solid prosecutor who obviously ran a tight and efficient investigation. His team looked hard and all they could come up with was Scooter. And Scooter didn’t jeopardize a spy or threaten national security. His crimes occured during the investigation and were not the cause of it.

So come Monday, Bush can start fresh, aware that the yapping bites around his ankle come from liberal chihuahuas who will never grow into pitt bulls or rottweilers.

If Fitzgerald had been investigating the Katrina response, we would have indicted one guy at FEMA.

If Fitzgerald had been investigating Guantanamo, he would have indicted some Lieutenant.

But if Fitzgerald had been investigating the Harriet Miers nomination idea, he would have had no choice but to indict the president.

So tomorrow, Mr. President, feel strong, refreshed and vindicated. Know that the Libs have nothing on you. Know that the base is there for you if you’re there for them. And get your administration back on track with a SCOTUS nominee who will make us cheer and keep them pathetically yappin’.

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… and then think of them beheaded.

That’s the reality of living on the same planet with radical Islamofascists.

The three girls lived in the town of Poso on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and were walking through a cocoa plantation on their way to school … a Christian school. Men so bruttal, so beneath contempt that the blackness of their souls is unfathomable, swept down on them, machettes held high, and set to work.

John at Sheep’s Crib captures the moment:

These were just little girls on their way to school.

Think of your daughters on their way to school Monday morning as they are dragged into the fields near your home; too far away for anyone to hear their cries for help as their assailants drag them by the hair, their knees and hands scrapping the ground.

Think of your fifteen or sixteen-year-old screaming “Mommy help me!” or “Daddy please help me,” as the cold steel blade of the butcher’s knife begins to slice your baby’s throat.

Jasmine or Mary-Beth, or whatever her name is, is alive through most of the horror; only when both jugular veins are severed does she pass out … and even then, her sweet little hands and feet twitch as death overcomes life.

BBC reports cooly:

Police say the heads were found some distance from the bodies.

It is unclear what was behind the attack, but the girls attended a private Christian school and one of the heads was left outside a church leading to speculation that it might have had a religious motive.

Good guess. Over 1,000 people were killed in largely Muslim-on-Christian violence in Sulawesi in 2001 and 2002. This May, the predominently Christian town of Tentena suffered a terrorist bombing which killed 23 and injured more than 30.

Besides the fact that many Muslims are happy to kill those who stand in the way of their religion’s domination, Indonesian president Suharto also carries substantial blame for this outrage. He encouraged the flooding of the Poso area with Muslims from Java, diluting the established Christian majority and destabilizing the region.

President Bush has asked the nations of the world who is with us on GWOT and who is against us. In Pasa, the headless bodies of three sweet girls tell us Suharto is against us.

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Gosh, she was so pretty on that October afternoon 23 years ago today. Farrah hair was in style then, and she had these big, loopy curls framing her gloriously pretty face.

It had been raining all day, but when family gathered at the gazebo above the surf in Laguna Beach, the sun broke through in spectacular sunbeams just as we traded our “I do’s.”

I still do, Beth. God fit us together so perfectly, because He had you to file down my rough edges so the fit locked tight. Let’s have another 23, shall we?

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Two young men are electrocuted in Paris as they try to hide in an electrical substation to escape from police.

Three nights of violent protest follow, then a silent parade to honor the two dead youths.

BBC reports the entire story — 14 paragraphs of it — and never mentions a word about the ethnicity or religion of the people involved. But there’s a hint: the headwear of one man in one picture looks like a fez.

The Guardian‘s even more opaque, saying “French youths” rioted, which is true but misleading. It only mentions deep in the story that the neighborhoods in question are peopled by recent immigrants from North Africa, aka Muslims.

The Herald Sun‘s story doesn’t say anything about the rioter’s ethnicity or religion.

CNN says:

“There’s a civil war underway in Clichy-Sous-Bois at the moment,” Michel Thooris, an official of police trade union Action Police CFTC, said.

There is? Who’s fighting whom? Bakers against candlestick makers? Mods against rockers? The croissant crowd against the baguette bunch? You’d never know by reading any of these stories.

Finally, in AP’s story on the third night of rioting, we learn that the dead youths’ names were Ziad and Banou. The story also mentions that Muslim community leaders are pleading for calm, as does an NYT story.

Three nights of rioting, with dozens of cars burned, dozens of arrests — and every single one of these newspapers is afraid to say Muslims are rioting in Paris! Suppose Europeans were rioting in Riyadh. Do you think the newspapers would just report that residents were rioting?

This is not reporting. This is not passing along important news that people need. It is reportorial correctness that brings shame to what we used to be able to call the journalistic profession .. but no more.

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This photo of Fidel at a recent sports event is just crying out for your creativity. Post your caption in the comments section, and the winner will have fame and glory.

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The NYTimes editorialized about the Plame Game today in a state of utter confusion.

It attempts to put the Libby indictment higher on the list of outrage than the Clinton indictment which, it says, was “on similar charges in a much less serious context.”

Really? Nowhere in the Libby indictment is there an allegation of anything more serious than lying about attempting to lead a journalist in a new direction on a story. An indictment for violating the Espionage Act would have been serious; this is grasping at charges.

Having sex with an intern is less serious than violating the Espionage Act; having sex with an intern and lying about it under oath to a grand jury is just as serious as lying under oath about when you talked to which reporter about what.

The NYT still refuses to admit that Wilson was peddling false wares:

As for Mr. Libby’s case, the charges suggest that White House officials did, in fact, use Mrs. Wilson’s classified C.I.A. job as a weapon against a critic of administration policy – to smear his reputation or to warn off other dissenters.

If a self-serving, wrong-thinking person is misrepresenting reality in order to pursue a personal agenda, what is an administration to do? What they did is provide background on how Wilson got his Niger gig, what he found and how he was now misrepresenting what he found. You’ll never hear that from the Rovanoid NYT.

And finally, the NYT remains confused about the whole question of WMDs:

And as absorbing as this criminal investigation has been, the big point Americans need to keep in mind is this: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Nothing in the Plame Game investigation disproved Hussein’s interest in African yellowcake. The NYT also ignores the purchase of nuclear and other WMD basic technology from German, France and other countries.

The big point Americans need to keep in mind is this: There was a willful intent by Hussein to obtain these weapons using oil-for-food money. Our invasion crushed that intent before he had a chance to acquire or use them — which is exactly what we should do when WMDs are involved.

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Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood by his statement that Israel should be “wiped off the map,” participating in a massive Jerusalem Day demonstration in Tehran — an event dedicated to wiping Israel off the map. Reports WashTimes:

“They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking. They think they are the absolute rulers of the world,” Ahmadinejad said.

Yeah, they became upset. Around the globe, Iranian ambassadors were called in to explain Ahmadinejad’s statement. The UN’s general assembly condemned Iran and Ahmadinejad, in a refreshing break from its anti-Israel rhetoric. But I doubt that they’ll act on Israel’s suggestion that Iran be suspended from the UN.

But all Ahmadinejad did was vocalize the sickness that is modern Islam’s hatred of Israel. Jerusalem Day rallies from Beirut to Baharain echoed with “Death to Israel” calls. Ahmadinejad just put the slogan into perspective.

Update: Regime Change Iran quotes the London Times:

TONY BLAIR gave warning last night that the West might have to take military action against Iran after worldwide condemnation of its President’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

Ending a one-day European Union summit, the Prime Minister called the explosive declaration by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday a disgrace. Promising discussions with Washington and other allies over how to react, Mr Blair said that he had often been urged not to take action against Iran.

But he added: “If they carry on like this the question people will be asking us is — when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a State like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?”

h/t Free Republic

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From the WashTimes:

A chill ran down the spine of journalist Mizanur Rahman when a neatly folded white cloth symbolizing an Islamic burial shroud tumbled out of a package he received by mail last month.

An accompanying letter addressed to Mr. Rahman, a reporter for the Dhaka daily Janakantha (People’s Voice), said that because of his “anti-Islamic” reporting, his days were numbered and he would soon be in a white burial shroud.

White shrouds and death threats also reached eight other journalists the same day in Satkhira, a district in southwestern Bangladesh.

The letters were signed by leaders of the outlawed militant group Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (Awakened Muslim Citizens of Bangladesh, often referred to by its initials, JMJB), the orthodox Islamist movement Ahl-e-Hadith (followers of the Sayings of the Prophet) and Jamat-e-Islami Bangladesh, an Islamist political party in the ruling coalition in Bangladesh. The letters threatened that the journalists would be “slaughtered” because their writings attacked clerics who want to transform the country into a pure Islamic state.

“We are determined to bring total Islamic rule in Bangladesh through an armed revolution,” the letters said. “You are some of the obstacles on our way to achieve these goals. You are the country’s enemies, so you face removal from this Earth.”

Of the nine reporters who received these death threats, five are Hindus, and the letters warned them that as non-Muslims, they had no right to report on Islamic matters.

As President Bush says, the Global War on Terror has many fronts and many enemies. We can’t fight them all. Bengaladesh needs to fight them, and they can call us whatever they want to in the process, as long as they fight them. And so it must go in nation after nation, so it’s clear to the terrorists that the world stands against them.

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Here’s a summary of some of the more pithy and condemning comments on the Fitzgerald indictment:

Opinion Journal:

Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation took nearly two years, sent a reporter to jail, cost millions of dollars, and preoccupied some of the White House’s senior officials. The fruit it has now borne is the five-count indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff–not for leaking the name of Valerie Plame to Robert Novak, which started this entire “scandal,” but for contradictions between his testimony and the testimony of two or three reporters about what he told them, when he told them, and what words he used. …

If this is a conspiracy to silence Administration critics, it was more daft than deft. The indictment itself contains no evidence of a conspiracy, and Mr. Libby has not been accused of trying to cover up some high crime or misdemeanor by the Bush Administration. The indictment amounts to an allegation that one official lied about what he knew about an underlying “crime” that wasn’t committed.

Ace of Spades:

This is a question of law, not fact. You don’t need to empanel a grand jury to decide if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, or if any of the various national security laws were broken.

This question could have been, and should have been, answered in the first month of legal investigation, using no greater investigative resources than a law library.

And yet, two years later, Fitzgerald apparently finds there was no violation of the IIPA, the Espionage Act, or any act involving the dissemination of classified information.

And during those two years he’s had people in jail for contempt and questioned many witnesses before the grand jury.

Parableman

There’s one thing that’s bothering me, though. The indictment goes on and on about how serious it is to leak the identity of an undercover CIA agent (leaving aside the issue of whether someone listed in Who’s Who as a CIA agent is really undercover). If Fitzgerald had been able to get the grand jury convinced that they had enough to indict either Libby or Karl Rove on that sort of charge, they would have included indictments on those matters. They didn’t pursue that course. So isn’t it illegal for Fitzgerald to include all that language in the indictment?

Moonbat Central

Whatever one makes of the indictment against Libby, and whatever comes of the charges levied against him, it seems apparent that the Plame affair will end with him. The New York Times, in a nostalgic bid to reclaim its Vietnam-era status, may splash its front page with three stories pantingly detailing the indictment—incidentally, is this really the best use of the paper’s not inconsiderable resources?—but it’s clear that the media does not have nearly enough rope to hang all its enemies in the White House.

Captains Quarters

In my inexpert opinion, having gone down to this level of detail to get an indictment against Libby but not producing any other indictments, I doubt Fitzgerald has anything left in the holster. It also shows that Fitzgerald didn’t feel particularly pressured to come up with indictments or to avoid them — in other words, it looks like he did his job. While the prosecution of Libby proceeds, more indictments may result as more evidence gets uncovered, but it looks like absent of some unforeseen epiphany, this is as much as Fitzgerald will produce.

Austin Bay

The White House will make another political mistake if it decides to try to defend Lewis Libby. Fortunately –for the country, for the health of America’s governmental institutions– the Bush White House hasn’t pulled a Clinton and trashed the prosecutor. By and large the Bush Administration has respected the judicial process. A Clintonesque trash-the-prosecutor tactic probably wouldn’t work, anyway, given the national press corps’ pro-Democrat bias. Clinton could rely on the national press to amplify his tawdry demonization of Ken Starr. The national press hates the Bush Administration.

If Libby committed perjury he did so out of arrogance. The most likely scenario is this both simple and sad: Libby thought he could get away with it. But then so did Clinton. Clinton lied to a federal judge and lost his bar license for five years. It’s time to give the Beltway Culture a kick.

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Here’s AP’s summary of the Scooter charges:

- Count one. Obstruction of justice.
The grand jury charges that Libby did “knowingly and corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice … by misleading and deceiving the grand jury” about when and how he learned that covert operative Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. He is also accused of misleading the grand jury about how he disclosed that information to the media.

- Count two. False statement.
The grand jury charges that Libby “did knowingly and willfully make a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement” in an FBI investigation. Specifically, the indictment says Libby misled FBI agents in response to questions about a conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News in July 2003.

- Count three. False statement.
Libby is charged with misleading FBI agents about his July 2003 conversation with another reporter, Matt Cooper of Time Magazine.

- Count four. Perjury.
After taking an oath to testify truthfully, Libby knowingly made a “false material declaration” about his conversation with Russert, the grand jury alleges.

- Count five. Perjury
Also under oath, Libby is accused of knowingly making a “false material declaration” about his conversation with Cooper.

Wow. Big news. A political operative is alleged to have lied. Like that never happened in a Dem administration.

As expected, every charge has to do with the investigation of the Plame Game, and nothing has to do with putting National Security or Valerie Plame at risk. A tempest in a teapot if there ever was one.

To all the lefties who were primed for an administration meltdown: Sorry, it’s not gonna happen over this.

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