The Night Of The Long Knives

James Wolcott's got a fascinating and wonderfully snarky take on the internecine war going on within the Bush administration this weekend. The long knives are out, it seems, and all we can do is sit back, enjoy, and wait for the next act to play out.

Imagine you're I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. I know, it's not easy. It's not easy imagining yourself striding manfully down the corridors of power or plotting the overthrow of tyrants while answering to the name of "Scooter." "Scooter, how's it hangin'?" "Scooter, have to seen the TKA-143 report?" "Scooter, are you going to eat all those fries?" Or, in intimate moments of scalding passion, "Oh, Scooter, Scooter--scooter me like you've never scootered me before!"

I have this one fantasy of all these guys sitting around the fireplace up there at Camp David. The press is reporting that they're all up there deciding what to do about the Meirs nomination, and that they're having some kind of high-level strategy session. But George has somehow managed to get himself shnockered and the rest of them just decided to scooter each other instead. But the better one has Judith Miller and Scooter on a bearskin rug in a ski chalet in Aspen, with Judy panting "Oh, Scooter, Scooter...". Scooter is wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses.

But let's pretend. You're Scooter Libby, and you're being royally, publicly screwed. Before you had a low profile within the neocon hierarchy and the red-hot circle of the White House decision-making machine. You didn't have the mouthy, controversial profile of a Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz, or the negative rap of a Doug Feith, a.k.a., the dumbest fucking man on the planet. But as Dick Cheney's chief of staff you were in what Seymour Krim called "the High Inside," the hum of power vibrating through your bones, a major player, a force. And now look at you. Your image, hitherto unknown to most of the public, is being flashed regularly on the TV screen like a playing card next to Karl Rove's more familiar babyface. Your names are linked too, as if you've formed a factoidal duo: Rove and Libby, Rove and Libby--which Don Imus has deliberately, mumblingly confused with Hunt and Liddy, two infamous names from the Watergate scandal.

This guy just popped onto the center of the radar screen after 4 years of virtual obscurity. Like his mysterious boss he's done a great job of keeping himself unknown yet still able to wield considerable power. Now all of a sudden he's everywhere. In an oddly ironic, and bizarrely Shakespearian way, Valerie Wilson and Brewster Jennings were not the only ones outed in this case. Libby has managed to inadvertantly out himself and burn his own cover within the administration as well. Even if Fitzgerald were to pack up and go home Libby's effectiveness has been greatly compromised.

It's not enough that you've been implicated in the Valerie Plame investigation, already indicted in the media's mind, but now you're being oiled and seasoned for ritual sacrifice by your former friends and associates in the White House, people you've trusted, people who share your convictions and zeal, but now avert their eyes or tense their smiles in the presence of a dead man walking. There's the gang plank, keep moving, say hello to the sharks. You're not even being treated as a honorable warrior whose crime (if it was a crime) and sin (if it was a sin) was standing up for your boss against that showboating prick Joe Wilson. No, those you've been loyal to are now disloyally sliding the blade into your back and not even allowing you a dignified sacrifice. They've broken the code of silence are leaking like mad to the LA Times (leaking: the perfect euphemism for being pissed on), drawing a lurid portrait of you as a zealous obsessive with an almost homoerotic fixation on Joe Wilson. The blame game has become the frame game. .... Karl Rove may be the one who more closely resembles Ned Beatty, but you're the one getting oinked in public, and it's not pretty.

Speaking of homoerotic, am I the only one who has noticed that 'Ole Scooter looks decidely effeminate in that clip they keep showing of him testifying at some hearing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Now comes the best part...

As Dana Bash reiterated at least three times yesterday on CNN, Rove's side has been putting out their background spin but your camp has been "stone silent." No one's rising or riding to your defense. Along with the shock of betrayal are the blows to your pride. Look at how the press talks about Rove. He's the nervous system of the White House staff, the chief architect of Republican dominance, the 7200 rpm hard drive of the Bush machine, the jolly pirate who guides the ship of state; without Rove, Bush will be reduced to wandering around the White House bumping into walls like a robot on the blink. Rove is considered indispensable, irreplaceable. But you, Scooter? You're being treated as not just dispensable but disposable. Rove is Bush's evil genius. Dick Cheney doesn't need an evil genius. He's his own evil genius. Once your nameplate has been removed from your desk, Burns will simply find himself another Smithers to pledge groveling obedience. Unlike those around you, you don't eat-breathe-drink politics every waking moment. You have a sensitive side, a literary side. You wrote a novel called The Apprentice full of snow and flickering heat, and your letter to Judith Miller waxed poetic about aspens and roots and clusters--a passage everyone's making fun of, trying to decode. Whatever happens in the week ahead, it's clear to everyone that you and Judy tried to play it cute with the special prosecutor, and got caught. So, imagine you're Scooter Libby awaiting the word from the grand jury. Are you going to be the fall guy, the patsy, the designated chump bearing the cross of blame while Rove plays the part of injured bystander? Are you happy at the prospect that your name may soon be a national joke on the lips of every late-nite comedian? Are you going to ignore the humiliation of being hung out to dry by your colleagues and hold your head high in silent stoic resolve? See, I'm imaging that if I'm Scooter Libby, I might be thinking that Karl and his crew overplayed their hand making me the leper, and maybe I've got some things of my own to divulge, and if I go down, maybe I won't be going down alone. They're not going to pin this all on me.

The anticipation of next week's shitstorm is one of those things one just want's to savor. (Hat tip to ReddHedd for the link to Wolcott)