Incendiary Advice

I've no idea if Patrick Fitzgerald will truly indict anyone in the Plamegate matter. The first casualty of reading and listening to both sides is clarity; all the spinning from the right and the left just makes a person dizzy.

Nevertheless, it's been the most interesting news week in, oh, forever. From all the lawyerly leaking, one thing truly comes into focus: The Cheney/Libby and Bush/Rove camps are having a meltdown, rushing so fast to separate from one another and begin cannibalization they look like a rugby team stuck in the Andes mountains.

And Fitzgerald, who will emerge as either yet another partisan crony OR the Elliott Ness of his day, depending on both what he does next week AND which side of the political spectrum you question, is simply the Goliath of Washington this week. He's got so much pinned on him that he could be a voodoo doll.

The right will herald him and trumpet his adherence to law, should he pack-up shop without indictments. They will call him a Democratic hack, if he indicts. The left will use the same adjectives, should he indict. Poor guy just can't win.


Perhaps telling - perhaps not (a meme echoed through newspapers, blogs and 24/7 cable infotainment "news" programs) Fitzgerald created a website of his own, yesterday. Thus far it contains DOJ memos and information pertaining to the scope of powers assigned to him regarding the Plamegate investigation.

A sign of impending indictments? A way to counter media spin? The left hopes for the former, and the right prognosticates the latter. Only Fitzgerald knows for certain.

Me? Of course, I believe this administration is, as John Dean's book title says, Worse than Watergate. Really, I'm just in it for the Editor and Publisher promise of a weekend at the St. Regis in DC for the winner of the "Title Judy Miller's new book" contest. My entry was posted last week - as well as my song parody for Plamegate. Wish me luck! ;)

Ameriquest Mortgage, one of the largest national -- and in particular, local -- predatory lenders, faces an Ohio Supreme Court challenge from mortgagers who claim unfair practices. Shame on Ohio government for tossing the legal ball onto cities, only to reject the law created by Cleveland's government when push came to shove.

Not surprisingly, after giving the Bush campaign 12 million dollars, Ameriquest's owner is now being made Ambassador to The Netherlands. "(Insert name here), you're doing a heckuva job!"

For more info:

www.clevescene.com

We know as much now about my daughter's leg tumor as we did when I blogged about it. The orthopaedic doctor didn't seem as alarmed as his ER peer, and said nothing can be ascertained until her ankle heals. According to him, a sprain that bad on a child's ankle is akin to breakage, so she's been stuck in a Darth Vader boot for nearly two weeks. When she's fully mended, he says he's do a bone scan to check for malignancy. I've not written about it and consciously have avoided giving it lengthy though. There's simply nothing we can do but wait.