Michael Jackson TalkRadio Content

figure seldom reported is the growing number of civilians working in Iraq who are killed. Eight hundred of those contracted to the Pentagon have lost their lives and more than 3,000 have been wounded. Many of the duties normally performed by the military have been outsourced. There are, in fact, nearly as many contractors (over 120,000) as U.S. troops in the war zone.(135,000). Even as President Bush and the generals have admitted that things are really not going well in Iraq, the Vice President, Dick Cheney, appears to have retreated even more into his conviction that the war has produced "fabulous successes". A few days ago, before the discovery of the clot in his leg, Mr. Cheney responded to an enquiry about Iraq's bloody insurgency, he said, "It's just the terrorists doing what terrorists always do,adjusting and adapting. Interesting comment in "The Nation" by John Nicols, "..both Democrats and Republicans are beginning to whisper about the vice president's tenuous ties to reality". The president, surely, needs an advisor who will give him the unvarnished truth. The felony conviction of the former White House aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is history, but the after-effects will be with us until the final days of the George W. Bush presidency. The case of Vice President Dick Cheney's one time chief of staff, seemed to be a curtain-raiser to bigger issues. No one was charged, including Mr. Libby, with the core offense under investigation: whether a CIA operative's identity was illegally leaked to the press. The conviction of Libby last Tuesday, for lying under oath and obstructing a federal investigation, will be considered a signal moment in the tenure of the Bush presidency. For those who remain strong supporters of the administration and the war in Iraq the whole case would be considered a waste of time and money, pursued by a most zealous special prosecutor. There remains talk of a possible presidential pardon of Libby, with, as one might anticipate, Democrats calling on Mr.Bush not to do it. For Libby, after the appeals process, if the conviction stands, he is likely to face up to 3 years in prison. The conviction has come at a most difficult time for the Bush White House. A majority of Americans are most unhappy with the Iraq war, and now taking the spotlight, the appalling conditions faced by so many war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere. I wonder what percentage of the public believes that Libby was hung out to dry by top presidential aide, Karl Rove and other more senior officials ,including the Vice President. I wonder if special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will be sufficiently emboldened by the outcome of the trial to go after Dick Cheney. The case reaffirms an old adage that usually it is not the crime..it's the cover-up. More to come