"Cheney 'Cabal' Hijacked US Foreign Policy"

All schadenfreude aside, this seems a little outside the "ordinary" criticisms of Bush at late.

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

"“Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences."

Col. Wilkerson isn't exactly an out-of-the-loop flunkie or another windbag blogger. I suppose it could be argued that in the grand scheme of things, he's not exactly a high-roller and therefore, may have lesser credibility than some, but I don't think that's the case.

Sure, we can all speculate about what Fitzgerald will do, and lace such hypotheses with spite and devilish glee over what may come down the pike in the next few weeks, but it's becoming increasingly clear: The climate in Washington is decidedly tumultuous. The administration's lock-down on dissent is crumbling, and people that heretofore held their tongues are starting to talk to anyone that'll listen.

Rumors of some fairly high-level assistants rolling over for Fitzgerald paired with comments like these in Financial Times means there's blood in the water and everyone can smell it.

I agree with Michael Reynolds: "This may finally be a scandal worthy of the 'gate' suffix."

Hat tip: idredit