Possible Friday Activities

Now might be a good time to sign John Conyers' letter to Bush urging that Bush grant no pardons in the Valerie Plame case.

It may also be a good time to read Ray McGovern's piece about the possibility that Bush could reenact Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre and fire Patrick Fitzgerald:

When the Watergate scandal reached a similar stage in October 1973, President Richard Nixon, ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the intrepid special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order; and so did his deputy William Ruckleshaus. So Nixon had to reach farther down into the Justice department where he found Robert Bork, who promptly dismissed Cox in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre.

Fitzgerald is at least as vulnerable as Cox was. Indeed, in recent days some of the fourth estate, Richard Cohen in the Washington Post and John Tierney in The New York Times, for example, seem to have accepted assignments to help lay the groundwork for Fitzgerald's dismissal.

Will the White House decide to fire special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and simply absorb the PR black eye, as Nixon did? There is absolutely nothing to prevent it. Can you imagine Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refusing on principle an order from President Bush?

Could Bush himself be named an un-indicted co-conspirator? If that or something like it happens, we can expect a circling of the wagons and Fitzgerald cashiered.