William Rivers Pitt: Diary of a Plamegate Junkie

8:12 am - Wake, sling blankets aside, startling cat into sudden flight.

8:13 am - Pull up New York Times web site, scan for news of Fitzgerald indictment.

8:14 am - Thump head repeatedly on desk, further confusing already-rattled cat.

8:17 am - Make coffee, check CNN in case something was missed in walk from office to kitchen.

8:22 am - Down coffee in single gulp, remember that the voices of CNN talking heads are like fingernails across the chalkboard of my soul, change channel.

10:23 am - Hit refresh on Times web site. Sigh.

10:30 am - Decide a ham-and-egg breakfast sandwich would be a good thing, grab jacket and wallet, head out.

10:31 am - Race back inside, hit refresh again, sigh. Notice that cat has gone into hiding.

10:58 am - Return with breakfast sandwich, wolf down in three bites while checking the blogs.

11:41 am - Check Washington Post web site for change of pace. Notice Dan Froomkin article about fear stalking the White House corridors. Chortle through mouthful of cheese.

12:22 pm - Send email to Joe Wilson asking for comment on the situation.

12:23 pm - Check email for reply.

12:24 pm - Check email for reply.

12:25 pm - Check email for reply.

12:26 pm - Check email for reply.

12:27 pm - Check email for reply.

12:28 pm - Check email for reply.

12:29 pm - Check email for reply.

12:30 pm - Slap self in face repeatedly, refresh New York Times page, sigh, pace around.

1:33 pm - Gobble handful of Tums to counteract surge of stomach acid from chugged coffee and gobbled breakfast sandwich.

1:34 pm - Refresh.

2:41 pm - Make conscious decision to walk away for a bit. Pick up book "Gorky Park" and try to do some casual reading.

2:46 pm - Fling book across room, hit refresh, sigh.

2:50 pm - Analyze headlines from last few days: Cheney May Be Involved, Investigation Expanding to Manipulation of WMD Evidence, Hannah Cooperates with Fitzgerald, 22 Different Files Opened in Investigation.

3:41 pm - Look into background of Cheney aide David Wurmser, who is also apparently cooperating with Fitzgerald. Make seventeen "Animal House" jokes to self. Giggle like titmouse.

4:02 pm - Take moment to let reality of other headline wash over soul: "Arrest Warrant Issued for DeLay." Twitch. Shiver.

4:03 pm - Refresh.

5:00 pm - Suck it up and turn CNN on again. Hurricane Wilma sends chill up spine. The storm developed faster than any on record, and is impossibly huge. Nah, there's no global warming.

6:22 pm - Sixth cup of coffee with Tums chaser. Check web forums to see what people are talking about. Check blogs again. Check New York Times again.

7:12 pm - Dig around in Google for articles I wrote about Wilson and Plame over last two years. Find this from February 2004, in essay titled "A NOC at Bush's Door":

Lewis Libby is one of the most important people on Cheney's staff. Along with John Hannah, who served as one of Cheney's Middle East Policy advisors, Libby was deeply involved in the activities of Rumsfeld's hand-picked Pentagon group, the Office of Special Plans. This group was put together specifically to re-engineer data regarding the threat posed by Iraq so as to manufacture justification for a decision to make war that had already been made. On several occasions, Libby visited CIA headquarters at the behest of Cheney to browbeat CIA analysts into "toughening up" their assessments of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Given all the work Libby and Hannah put in to make sure Bush got his Iraq war, it is no wonder they were less than thrilled with what Ambassador Wilson had to say.

Did these men out a CIA agent and destroy a network that tracked weapons of mass destruction? We may soon know. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the investigation. A bulldog of a US Attorney named Patrick Fitzgerald is special prosecutor investigating the matter. Several members of the Bush administration have been dragged before a Grand Jury, including White House spokesman Scott McClellan, McClennan deputy Claire Buchan, former press aide Adam Levine, Republican consultant Mary Matalin, who served as a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, White House communications director Dan Bartlett, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Cheney aide Cathie Martin.

7:13 pm - Pat self on back.

10:30 pm - Dig up old Hunter Thompson quote about Watergate and the tapes:

"There are a hundred or more people wandering around Washington today who have heard the 'real stuff,' as they put it - and despite their professional caution when the obvious question arises, there is one reaction they all feel free to agree on: that nobody who felt shocked, depressed or angry after reading the edited White House transcripts should ever be allowed to hear the actual tapes, except under heavy sedation or locked in the trunk of a car. Only a terminal cynic, they say, can listen for any length of time to the real stuff without feeling a compulsion to do something like drive down to the White House and throw a bag of live rats over the fence."

12:04 am - Hit refresh.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

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