No sex tonight-just politics

Well, I was going to grapple with the puzzle of sex addiction tonight, but it's been an incredible day of political drama in D.C., so the sex thing is just going to have to wait (by the way, if you want to read a well-written and charming book replete with a male Muse and hot middle-aged sex, try Mary Gordon's novel Spending- women, wouldn't you love to have a personal Muse on call for inspiration, money and sex?).

Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues to implode. While this should surprise almost no one, it is horrific how much damage they have managed to do.

Right after the Libby verdict came down around noon, NPR anchor Robin Young interviewed George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley. He must have spent a lot of time being interviewed about the Libby trial (and perhaps on other matters) because he was amazingly well prepared. He said that trial made it crystal clear that a. responsibility for Libby's behavior could be laid directly at VP Dick Cheney's door and b. it is obvious that Dick Cheney is, in fact, the person the public thinks he is: powerful and vengeful.

As a journalist, another comment he made stuck with me-that the Libby affaire showed no one in a good light-including members of the media. Judith Miller of the New York Times resigned, probably under pressure. Robert Novak of Fox News and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post probably should have been fired, too-if Woodward hadn't been such an icon, he would have been, argued Turley.

Depending on how ticked off the Hon. Reggie Walton is, we may have seen the last of "Scooter" Libby for quite a while. The fact that the jury took ten days to reach a verdict of perjury, lying and obstruction worried me, but it turned out that they were just being amazingly conscientious about the meaning of the words "reasonable doubt." This White House, incapable of taking responsibility for anything, pretended that the whole scandal had nothing to do with them-but it has everything to do with their modus operandi- one that makes the Roman Emperors look like metrosexual pacifists.

Meanwhile, the Senate was hearing testimony in the firing of eight US attorneys (all Republicans) by the Bush administrations' thugs at DOJ. As a Slate writer pointed out today, the question is-who slipped a paragraph into the Patriot Act that allowed Justice to fire attorneys and replace them with political appointees-with no real supervision by anyone? Judiciary Committee head and Pa Senator Arlen Specter was either asleep at the wheel...or his fingerprints are all over this sleazy sleight-of-hand.