Dan Froomkin:
It's time for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to come clean about their roles in the White House's outing of a CIA agent and the ensuing cover-up.
It's actually long past time. But with former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction yesterday, the stench of corruption has taken formal residence at the White House.
The president and vice president can pretend it's not there, and can continue to hide behind their weak and transparent excuse for not commenting on an "ongoing criminal investigation".
But the trial is over. The investigation is over. And the conviction of a liar in their midst has made it more imperative than ever that the leaders of this country fully address the American people's legitimate concerns that the lies in question were intended to hide from public view even deeper skullduggery at the highest levels of the administration.
Froomkin links to post-trail comments by Bush, Cheney and
Fitzgerald:
"What was said in court was a defense argument made that we put a cloud over the White House, as if, one, we were inventing something or, two, making something up, in order to convince the jury that they ought to convict.
"And I think in any case where you feel that someone's making an argument that you are inventing something or improperly casting a cloud on someone, you respond.
"And we responded fairly and honestly by saying there was a cloud there caused by -- not caused by us. And by Mr. Libby obstructing justice and lying about what happened, he had failed to remove the cloud.
"And sometimes when people tell the truth, clouds disappear. And sometimes they don't..."
Elsewhere,
DAvid Corn has a good run-down of the case from start to finish.
