Why not being able to blog during the day sucks

It's not that I wish I were home all day to be able to write something brilliant when Big News Breaks, because that would mean that I was unemployed. And if it's a choice between designing return address logos and reformatting user and design specifications or being home to blog but living in constant gnawing fear about being able to pay the bills, well, that's a no-brainer.

But still, when I see the big GUILTY show up and I can't write about it, it's frustrating as hell.

I'm not under any delusions that the conviction of Scooter Libby on four out of five counts (which came as a surprise to me, given how long the jury was out and the Administration's track record of strongarming the justice system) means a hill of beans. Far from being chastened, the Usual Suspects not only don't care about the unholy marriage of this Administration and its lackeys in the mainstream media that were revealed during this trial, they are sticking to their own delusions that Joseph Wilson is a liar, that Valerie Plame was not NOC, and perhaps the couple's biggest crime -- that they are Democrats.

As to whether Libby will ever spend a day in jail, well, it's a certainty that he'll be pardoned, despite the limp and pathetic entreaties of Harry Reid.

Meanwhile, the fact that the Iraq war was based on total fabrications, the fact that the worst kind of lies were told by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, will continue to go unpunished. The Bush/Cheney legacy will be a dark one, to be sure, but one without consequences. Patrick Fitzgerald has said that he is done, that he is not going to go after Cheney. And perhaps this is the correct decision, if Cheney has covered his tracks sufficiently well so that conviction is impossible. As to the political ramifications, they are unimportant where Dick Cheney is concerned, especially if you assume that this bunch will leave office in 2009 -- something of which I am not yet convinced. Cheney isn't going to run for president. In theory his years in power will be over, unless some future Republican president loses his mind -- or more likely, the public loses its memory -- and decides his "experience" is an asset. Perhaps this is the reason for shoveling such huge amounts of cash into Halliburton's coffers from so many projects, not just the Iraq war -- it's Dick Cheney's retirement plan.

So while it's tempting to rejoice at the idea that someone in the Bush Administration is actually going to have to accept some consequences for the lies and corruption that are this bunch's hallmark, the reality is that the only person who may suffer consequences is Tim Russert, who is likely to find himself outside in the cold, his nose pressed against the window, where access to this administration is concerned.

(cross-posted at Independent Blogger's Alliance)