Griper Blade: Scooter Drops the Dime

Bad week for the right. DeLay goes down, now I. Lewis Libby spills his guts - his new nickname in the White House will probably be 'Scooter the Rat'. National Journal has the story. My schadenfreude is absolutely shameless.

"Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

"I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.

"Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.

"The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing."

I can imagine what's going on in the Oval Office right now...

Georgie: Dick! Dick! Scooter's turned us in! What are we gonna do?

Dick: Shut up, Georgie! I've got to think! Let me think!

Georgie: Fitz is gonna stick us in prison!

Dick: (pours a tumbler of whiskey and downs it in a gulp) I said shut up!

Georgie: I'm too purty to go to prison!

Dick: Ok, ok... We need money and guns...

Georgie: I ain't never been good at handling that soap... y'know, in the shower...

Dick: And a ride... Something no one will notice...

Georgie: It gets all slippery...

Dick: Does Gladys in the mailroom still drive that Nissan?

Georgie: I'm gonna drop it for sure... In the shower... (starts to panic) That's how they get you, Dickie! In the shower! Y'drop that danged soap and they get you, y'hear? They get you in the shower!

(Dick grabs Georgie and slaps him, pauses, slaps him again)

Dick: Get a hold of yourself! Your worse than... (Karl enters the room, sweating)

Georgie: Karl!

Dick: (under his breath) That's where I was going with that thought...

Karl: Georgie!

Karl & Georgie: The soap!

Dick: The hell with this, I'm getting my shotgun. You two ladies can stay here... You're no good to me any more...

(Karl & Georgie fall to their knees in each others arms, sobbing)

Dick: (grabs a shotgun from the closet, checks the chamber) Adios, muchachos - it's been a hell of a ride. (rushes out the door)

(a gunshot)

Dick: (offstage) Sorry, Gladys...