John Dean, former counsel to president Richard M. Nixon, wrote a column for FindLaw yesterday that is an absolute must read. In it, he gave a thorough analysis of the issues facing special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, while indirectly discrediting the parade of media representatives who have declared in the past couple of weeks that chief White House aide Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, will be indicted next week.

The crux of his argument is that unless Libby and or Rove perjured themselves or suborned perjury, it would be difficult to prove that their actions were not in the interest of national security:

“It is difficult to envision Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuting anyone, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, who believed they were acting for reasons of national security. While hindsight may find their judgment was wrong, and there is no question their tactics were very heavy-handed and dangerous, I am not certain that they were acting from other than what they believed to be reasons of national security. They were selling a war they felt needed to be undertaken.

“In short, I cannot imagine any of them being indicted, unless they were acting for reasons other than national security. Because national security is such a gray area of the law, come next week, I can see this entire investigation coming to a remarkable anti-climax, as Fitzgerald closes down his Washington Office and returns to Chicago.

“In short, I think the frenzy is about to end -- and it will not go any further.”

In one captivating scene of Stephen Spielberg’s “War Of The Worlds”, a frenzied mob besieges a minivan until the character played by Tom Cruise relinquishes control of it with the drama heightened by a few brief moments of whether or not his preadolescent daughter was going to be part of the spoils. As someone that projects certain cultural and social trends into the future, the scenario reminded me of what would likely happen should an incident of overwhelming destruction ever occur within the United States.

Those with limited imaginations will brush it all aside and say such anarchy could never happen here. And under optimal circumstances, I would never have proof one way or the other as to the veracity of my sociological postulations regarding these matters. Unfortunately in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it seems I didn’t have to wait too long for a far off tragedy to receive confirmation.

In an October 19, 2005, article, veteran Associated Press reporter Tom Raum claimed (emphasis added),

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA-leak inquiry is focusing attention on what long has been a Bush White House tactic: slash-and-burn assaults on its critics, particularly those opposed to the president's Iraq war policies.

"Slash-and-burn assaults"? This sounds more like something out of a Chucky or Halloween movie.

Apparently, this is the AP's idea of "news analysis." Yet at at least one place on the Web, Raum's article appears as being just another newswire story. At CNN.com, for example, Raum is not even given a byline, and the piece does not carry any kind of "News analysis" or "Commentary" heading.

There has been a lot of outrage in the media concerning the burning of a couple of dead, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in early October. Yet, the Australian journalist who videotaped the proceedings, Stephen Dupont, stated in an interview on National Public Radio yesterday (audio link to follow courtesy of Bareknucklepolitics.com) that he believed the bodies were burned purely for reasons of hygiene when the local villagers refused to retrieve them, and that the American soldiers didn't do anything wrong. (Video links to an SBS "Dateline" promo for Dupont's piece as well as an SBS interview with him on the subject also follow):

“I actually believe that the guys who were involved in the burning did it with honorable, you know, reasons. They did it through their orders, or they did if for hygiene. I had no doubt in my mind that they were telling me the truth. If they were doing something that was problematic or controversial, there’s no way they would have shown me this. There’s no way they would have let me go up there and film this.”

I've never seen such a simple graph make me giggle so hard...

And we thought PBS films were bad. David’s Medienkritik reports the German government has subsidized a sympathetic film about Palestinian suicide bombers."Paradise Now" tells the story of two Palestinian men, Said and Khaled, who are selected as the latest suicide bombers, and debate which way is best to defeat Israeli occupiers. This is supposed to help us by "humanizing" the assassins. Oh, but lucky us! It’s coming to America, to the film festival circuit. It’s been picked up by Warner Independent Pictures. And it's won an Amnesty International award.

The filmmaker, Hany Abu-Assad, told a German website he wouldn’t condemn suicide bombers: "The suicide attacks are a consequence of oppression, which first has to stop...I am against killing people, and I want that to stop. But I do not condemn the suicide attackers. For me, it is a very human reaction to an extreme situation." In their marketing materials, Warner Independent is trying to make "clear that the film is one that carries a message of peace," says spokeswoman Laura Kim. "We are working with many organizations to help get the word out that the film is one to begin a dialogue, to ask questions."

"And so basically, what it looks like is going to happen is that Libby and Karl Rove are going to be executed” because “outing a CIA agent is treason,” left-wing author and radio talk show host Al Franken asserted Friday night, to audience laughter, on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman. Franken qualified his hard-edged satire: "Yeah. And I don't know how I feel about it because I'm basically against the death penalty, but they are going to be executed it looks like." Franken later suggested that President Bush is at risk of receiving the same punishment, since Karl Rove likely told him what he did, but he added a caveat: “I think, by the way, that we should never ever, ever, ever execute a sitting President."

Updated Sunday night with video. Excerpt #1: Real or Windows Media and MP3 audio. Excerpt #2: Real or Windows Media and MP3 audio. Transcripts of the exchanges, on the October 21 Late Show, follow.

On Friday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Lee Cowan filed a story on Congressman Tom DeLay's appearance in a Texas courtroom, which on some counts was balanced, but which glaringly highlighted a Replublican critic of Tom DeLay who referred to him as a "hog." Although Fort Bend Star publisher Beverly Carter has been a longtime critic of DeLay who even endorsed his opponent in last year's election, Cowan simply referred to her as a "Republican precinct chairwoman," thus giving her credibility as a typical local Republican leader.

The story began with Cowan relaying DeLay's criticisms of Judge Bob Perkins for links to the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, followed by a soundbite of DeLay accusing prosecutor Ronnie Earle of abusing his power. Cowan then proceeded to highlight "some Republicans who aren't buying it" and showed a couple of soundbites from Carter
without conveying her anti-DeLay history to provide context. Notably, according to an article in the New York Times that ran on April 17 of this year, Carter admitted to having "got crosswise" with DeLay eight years earlier over his involvement in a local election for sheriff. Cowan did at least provide some balance by next highlighting a woman who "runs a neighborhood program for foster children that DeLay and his wife started years ago" and noted that he is "still plenty popular" in the district. Still, the failure to properly identify Carter gives an impression of greater Republican division in the district than perhaps really exists. A complete transcript of the Friday October 21 story, anchored by Bob Schieffer, follows: