If I did it, it was because Cheney channeled Jack the Ripper.
I've never seen him as crazed as he was that day that Joe Wilson's op-ed ran. Actually, I've never seen anyone that rabid.
Cheney said that if the uranium/Saddam/al-Qaeda connection unraveled, then our whole case for the Iraq war would come undone. He said that if Wilson didn't pay a high price for questioning us, then any shmuck with a keyboard would be emboldened to come after us. He said that if we didn't fight them in the press, we'd have to fight them in Congress and the courts.
Of course it wasn't just Cheney and me in on it. It was Rove, and Ari, and Andy, and -- let's face it -- the Bushster, too. For a few months there, I was practically full time on the smear case, leaking to friendlies, blowing WMD smoke up their ass, selectively declassifying left and right, covering Dick's butt while he ran the war. Ran the whole damn White House, when you get right down to it.
Did I think I'd get caught? Frankly, I never thought Justice would let it get this far. That's not what we mean by "the system worked." But no matter how tough it's been for me personally, I've never once considered being flipped. My lawyers and I did our part -- Dick and Karl didn't have to face Fitz under oath in the witness box, and neither did I -- and now POTUS and Cheney will do theirs. I just wish I didn't have to wait until after the election for my pardon.
And screw the liberal media if they say that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. If there's one thing we can count on, it's that our friends at Fox will turn that narrative inside out. It's amazing that those wusses at the Times still haven't figured out how media nullification works.
Speaking of the Times, it tickles me that Judy Miller actually went to the slammer to protect the sourcing deal she made with me. If the situation had been reversed, do you think I'd've hesitated for a nanosecond before nailing her in front of a Grand Jury? I still can't believe that my crappy aspens-turn-in-clusters-because-their-roots-connect poetry actually worked on her.
No one's going to impeach Cheney, or Bush, for that matter. The Democrats can't even bring themselves to cut off money for the war. If they don't think they're going to inherit the full friggin' fiasco in 2009, if they don't understand that they'll be getting the blame for the meltdown in the Middle East, if they don't realize that every one of us who worked in the White House has a golden parachute for life, then I'd like a toke of what they've been smoking. When it comes to ducking accountability, and taking care of our own, we wrote the book.
Speaking of writing the book, I wonder what Judith Regan's up to.