More Transparent Lies, Direct From Dick Cheney's Handwriting. . .

First, note that the image, at right -- of Dick Cheney's forehead -- contains his own handwritten notes, about U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, made in the margins of a July 6, 2003 New York Times opinion piece he read on his way back from Jackson Hole, Wyoming -- to Washington, DC. The opinion explained -- in detail -- what Ambassador Wilson didn't find while looking for evidence of any Nigerian-to-Iraqi yellowcake trading. Here it is, in context:



Now click the image below:



So, when asked about all of this, by the FBI Special Agent, a little less than one year later -- Dick Cheney could not at first recall whether he and Scooter Libby had ever discussed Joe Wilson's trip as "a junket". All sources put Scooter Libby with Dick Cheney, in Jackson Hole on that July 4 weekend. What are the odds that -- if Dick Cheney took the time to make a note -- in his own hand, thus: "Did his wife [Valerie Plame] send him [Wilson] on a junket?", on the plane back to DC, that day, that he didn't already know Plame was CIA, and that Joe Wilson had "outed" one of the central lies embedded in the 16 words? [Later, perhaps recalling his handwritten notes, Cheney allows that it is "possible" he and Scooter discussed the trip, as a junket or boondoggle.]

It seems unfathomable, that such a sharp political mind as Mr. Cheney is reputed to possess, would have made an entirely trivial note on Air Force Two, then done nothing about it -- and in fact, forgotten it entirely, for almost a year. But, in order to decide that Mr. Cheney was not at least winking and nodding in the director of Scooter Libby, about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson -- we must assume just that unlikely set of occurences. That he wrote the note for no reason, watched the ensuing debacle unfold -- about the falsity of the 16 words. . . and never pursued any method to blunt the impact of these highly-damaging revelations. Go figure.

Moreover, what are the odds that he would not have tasked Scooter Libby with throwing up a fog of disinformation, to cover the Veep's (and, potentially, the President's) tracks -- about the clear-falsity of the 16 words in the President's State of the Union address -- words used to begin the war in Iraq?

Slim to none. Slim -- to none. Let's talk to Eric Holder about a special prosecutor, again. Related: Do go read the Atlantic Wire blog piece -- on these developments.

UPDATED: Read Marcy Wheeler's latest, thus:

. . .Cheney was publicly implying that he would have had the authority to declassify Plame’s identity. Perhaps this was just an attempt to make people ignore inquiries like mine. But it’s just as likely that when Cheney realized that Libby had testified he had ordered Libby to leak stuff to Judy Miller (this happened the same weekend Cheney shot an old man in the face!), he wanted to give Libby the impression that his own testimony protected Libby from an IIPA violation.

But it didn’t. Judy’s unreliable testimony saved Libby. But without that, Cheney’s own testimony would have been the evidence Fitzgerald would have needed to charge Libby with deliberately outing a CIA spy. . .