the scarecrow's searingly-short indictment. . .

this may be the most succinctly-put
run-down yet-extant on why it is time
to idict the sitting vice president,
posted this morning over at firedoglake,
the blog-of-record for all things plame-gate.

go read the whole thing, but this bit
is exceptional in its rhetorical economy:

". . .Over and over again, Cheney and
Libby treated classified information. . .
not as something to be protected and
shielded from exposure, but rather as
a weapon in a propaganda war.

It was information to be selectively
withheld or disclosed, misrepresented and
misused to buttress arguments, confuse the
public and punish political enemies. . .

And when it came to the potential classified
status of a covert CIA agent, there wasn’t
the slightest concern shown by Cheney or
Libby for Valerie Plame’s protection during
that critical period of 2003. The astonishing
thing after three weeks of trial, including over
8 hours of Libby’s Grand Jury testimony, is
that not once did these men ask whether disclosing
Valerie Plame’s job and status would cause harm
to her, to her operation in the CIA or to the
efforts and people in the broader intelligence
community. Instead, as Fitzgerald noted in his
closing argument today, 'Wilson’s wife wasn’t a
person but an argument'. . ."

ooOoh! -- that's gonna leave a mark.

i'll have more in a moment, as
jeralyn merritt [at talkleft] has
suggested -- wrongly, i think -- that
fitzgerald did not bring as many
charges as he could have, and then
chose not to charge the vice president. . .

but, as i said, more shortly in a separate post.