Two Years Before The Mast

Another one of the talking points from Big Pharma, Instacracker and the like is "Two years! And only one person indicted! What's the big deal? Special prosecutor run wild."

There are two immediate responses to this bit of diversionary nonsense:

1. A year's delay was created by Cooper/Miller fighting the subpoenas and Miller refusing to testify for three months after the appeals were exhausted. I'm certain there was other work done during this time period, but Fitzgerald had an obligation not to go forward before all the discoverable evidence was presented to the grand jury. As Fitzgerald said, "I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."

2. More importantly, the completion of the investigation was delayed because Libby lied to the grand jury. Had Libby told the truth, Fitzgerald wouldn't have had to spend all that time untangling Libby's lies. The same applies to Karl Rove and his (alleged) multiple attempts to walk back his lies after Cooper finally testified. Had Bush's operatives done what Bush supposedly wanted them to do (cooperate fully with special counsel) they could have started serving their sentences already and be looking forward to their 2025 release dates.