Will Bush fire Fitzgerald? He can, you know...

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Fire the Special Prosecutor? Shades of Watergate

When the Watergate scandal reached a similar stage in October 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the intrepid special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order; and so did his deputy William Ruckleshaus. So Nixon had to reach farther down into the Justice department where he found Robert Bork, who promptly dismissed Cox in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre.

Fitzgerald is at least as vulnerable as Cox was. Indeed, in recent days some of the fourth estate, Richard Cohen in the Washington Post and John Tierney in The New York Times, for example, seem to have accepted assignments to help lay the groundwork for Fitzgerald's dismissal.

Will the White House decide to fire special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and simply absorb the PR black eye, as Nixon did? There is absolutely nothing to prevent it. Can you imagine Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refusing on principle an order from President Bush?

Could Bush himself be named an un-indicted co-conspirator? If that or something like it happens, we can expect a circling of the wagons and Fitzgerald cashiered.

If the case Fitzgerald has built, however, is not strong enough to implicate Bush personally, it seems likely that the president will acquiesce in wholesale frog marching of others from the White House and then go off for a Thanksgiving vacation in Crawford - oops, more likely, Camp David. For Cindy Sheehan is planning Thanksgiving in Crawford: she still hopes to see the president so that he can explain to her personally what the "noble cause" was for which her son died.

It promises to be an interesting autumn. By all means stay tuned.
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Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

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