Quote of the day: Our Irving boggles Prosecutor Pat's brain--hey, if you were to MAKE UP stuff like Cheney and his gang, would anybody believe it?

Q: "Was that unusual for you to have the national security adviser, the director of Central Intelligence, the White House chief of staff among others in the dark as to something that you had done regarding declassification?"

A: "It is not unusual for the vice president to tell me something which I am not allowed to share with others."

--Irving "Lewis" Libby [left], on a tape played at his trial on Tuesday, responding to a question by "Prosecutor Pat" Fitzgerald, reported by the Los Angeles Times's Greg Miller, as quoted by Dan Froomkin in his Washingtonpost.com column yesterday, "Cheney Doesn't Share"

Prosecutor Pat's apparently incredulous question was prompted by our Irving's revelation that the vice president [right] had arranged to have portions of the theretofore-super-hush-hush prewar national intelligence estimate on Iraq secretly declassified, expressly in order to be able to leak carefully selected bits to reporters for political purposes.

Froomkin writes:

Another memorable scene of the inner workings of the Bush White House unfolded yesterday in the federal courthouse where former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby is on trial.

This one is particularly significant because it gives credence to the widespread view that Vice President Cheney oversees his own intensely secretive, highly defensive and sometimes ruthless operation within the White House--and that he does so with President Bush's approval, but often outside the view of Bush's top aides.

Wouldn't it be interesting to have access to the early report cards of Little Dickie Cheney, to see how he scored in categories like "Plays well with others"?