reality-based educator

Scooter Libby has turned on Karl Rove and the White House:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — In his opening statement today, the chief defense lawyer for I. Lewis Libby Jr. set the stage for a nasty bout of finger-pointing in the Bush administration, asserting that Mr. Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, had been made a scapegoat to protect the president’s longtime political strategist, Karl Rove.

The unexpected statement by Theodore V. Wells Jr. was the first sign that Mr. Libby, who is facing five felony counts, would seek to deflect some of the blame on to his former White House colleagues. Until today, Mr. Libby’s defense to perjury and obstruction of justice charges was that he might simply have remembered incorrectly what he testified to in a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents.

Mr. Wells told the jury that the unnamed White House officials wanted to protect Mr. Rove because they believed his survival as President Bush’s political adviser was crucial to the health of the Republican Party.

Mr. Wells Jr. said his client, known by his nickname, “Scooter” was innocent and that a decision was made that “Scooter Libby was to be sacrificed.”

It was important to keep Mr. Rove out of trouble, Mr. Wells said, because he was the Mr. Bush’s right-hand man and “was most responsible for seeing the Republican Party stayed in office. He had to be protected.”

Between Cheney's coming testimony and now Libby turning on Rove, this trial is starting to get real good.

This brings up another question: will Dick Cheney still be a friendly witness to the defense (i.e., Libby and the VP's office vs. Rove and the White House) or will Scooter turn on the boss too?

Or will Cheney turn on Libby in order to save his own fat neck (especially considering Patrick Fitzgerald said today that Cheney was directly involved in the leak)?

Boy oh boy, this is gonna be a fun six weeks.

Fitz!