Just when you think you cannot feel more sick to your stomach:

Ron: The intent--the basic raison d'etre of this product is to get, is to create, here's a letter with what's in it. Okay, here's what we want on the letter, we want it to be released as essentially a representation of something Habbush says. That's all it says, that's the one paragraph. And then you pass it to whomever to do it. To get it done.

Rob: It probably passed through five or six people. George probably showed it to me, but then passed it probably to Jim Pavitt, the DDO, who then passed it down to his chief of staff who passed it to me. Cause that's how--you know, so I saw the original. I got a copy of it. But it was, there probably was--

Ron: Right. You saw the original with the White House stationery, but you didn't--down the ranks, then it creates other paper.

Rob: Yeah, no, exactly. But I couldn't tell you--again: I remember it happening, I remember a terrible brief kinda joking dialogue about it, but that was it.

. . .

Ron: Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it--not from the president?

Rob: No, no, no. What I remember is George saying, 'we got this from'--basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'

Ron: Which is the White House?

Rob: Yes. But he did not--in my memory--never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now--he may have hinted--just by the way he said it, it would have--cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president.

Ron: Yeah, right.

Rob: But he didn't say that specifically. I would naturally--I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president.

When we were deep into our Plame coverage, there were all sorts of hints and rumors about how much time the Vice President, Libby and Addington had spent tra-la-ing down to Langley or over to the NSA or the WH to meet with various analysts in person. And how unusual and jarring that was for so many of them. Everything has pointed -- for years -- of Cheney running a shadow national security shop out of his office with the President's full approval.

I keep thinking back to the testimony from Robert Grenier, who did not want to be on the stand at the Libby trial. You could just see it in his edgy, furtive glances at Libby that he knew they were going to exact some retribution somehow for him divulging anything.

But where things started to get really fascinating was the testimony of Craig Schmall, Libby and Cheney's morning briefer during the time period when Plame's covert work was betrayed. I can remember sitting in the courtroom watching Schmall testify, and glancing over at Libby who was repeatedly doing that weird thumb rubbing tic that he got when he was getting agitated. It was also during that testimony that I first noticed that vein that popped out on his forehead when he got really annoyed. It was also during that testimony that we caught a glimpse of how much micro-managing Cheney and Libby were trying to do at CIA:

Fitzgerald did the direct examination of Schmall this morning and I thought it was brilliantly constructed -- he managed to elicit tidbits that were very damaging to Libby's credibility and which directly challenged the "I was too busy and important to remember" defense, from a witness who was not hostile to Libby in the slightest and who came across as the sort of person who earnestly wanted to do a good job. Some of the information obtained included:

-- Margin notes on the briefing slip for 6/14/03 (a Saturday briefing of Libby at his home): Libby complained about a story in the press about CIA analysts feeling bullied about his and VP Cheney's visits to the CIA;

-- Margin notes on the briefing slip for 6/14/03: Libby asked "Why was the Ex. Amb. told this and was this a VP office question? Joe Wilson Valerie Wilson"

-- Margin notes on the 7/14/03 briefing (a Monday, so it would have been with VP Cheney and with Libby potentially as well): "Did you read the Novak article -- not your problem..."

All of this was very interesting, especially the timing of the questions asked about Wilson back on June 14, 2003. There is a bit of a puzzle about the "not your problem" portion of the 7/14/03 notation -- does this mean that the briefer did not need to look further into the matter? And did this come from Vice President Cheney or from Libby?...

I've been thinking about this a lot since reading Jane Mayer's excellent book and now taking a peek at Suskind's: how many more horrifying tidbits are out there, just waiting to be found in subsequent years as documents get sifted through and secrets whispered to historians and journalists. And why is it that so much of the most hubris-filled, fetid pus seems to ooze out of the office of the Vice President and into our government's actions and policies?

We have a government run by criminals. And their decisions are seeping into everything they touch. To wit:

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

This is inhuman, and against everything the US is supposed to have stood for, that we have fought for, that soldiers lost their lives fighting against during WWII and beyond. We have become the enemies we used to fight. And we have done it without a whimper.

Karma can be a bitch. Here's hoping she's taking notes.

(YouTube of Ron Suskind on The Daily Show.)