Countdown To Trinity

By Number Six

Monday, October 17, 2005 at 03:54 PM

In the days leading up to the very first test of a nuclear warhead, many wondered: How powerful is this sucker going to be?

And in many ways, the mess leading up to the release of criminal indictments in the Plamegate mess has similar overtones: How powerful is this warhead going to be when the clock hits zero?

Back at Trinity, there seemed to be three camps as to what the "doodad" would do once triggered. The cynics said "Well, probably about nothing.", followed by one physicist who stated, "Oh, probably about 20 kilotons.", followed by the hysteria bunch: "Utter destruction of the entire planet."

A few days later, it seemed the physicist who said "20 kilotons" won the bets. The actual blast set off about 19 plus. As bets go, like winning Pick 5.

Point is, as the whole sad, sorry, unbelievably complex and as yet untested Plamegate warhead ticks down to zero, I find myself asking: How bad is this going to be?

The cynics among us, whether the neocons or those liberals so angry seem to put their money on "a big dud". Chimpie, their theory goes, will pardon everyone, his loading up SCOTUS with nitwits will make it even harder to prosecute, yada, yada and more yada.

On the other end of the spectra towards the hysteria end are those who estimate a blast yield in terratons. "Everyone in the Chimp regime is part of it! This will wipe out the entire White House! Possibly take out congress with it!"

Me? I'm not sure where to lay my loot. As it was many years ago with Watergate, the trail looks more and more like a schematic diagram for wiring up all of New York. Every day releases more and more complexity, a virtual "Who's On First" of players, participants and I swear, the longer Fitz delays, the more irritating this is getting.

Of course this is a big warhead before us. Shy of Teapot Dome and Watergate, nobody in the 200 plus year history of this nation has been witness to a saga this ludicrous, and unlike Watergate, whose prime mission was to back CREEP, this monster sits poised to unleash a fallout wave: The truth about why we went to Iraq.

The bigger question would then be who's not involved. If we follow the trails led by those at Raw Story, DU, Kos, et al, the worst-case scenario will yield a fallout of about 200 persons. That's a lot of jail cells. Inclusive, of course, would be both Chimp and Chainsaw, Condi, Bolton, Libby, everyone at PNAC, everyone involved with WHIG, possible connections to....I mean, Jesus, it reads like a phone book of DC!

Even worse? The fallout signature that will fall over the entire MSM empire. Already, the NY Times is looking like they've sucked down about 200 Roentgens and counting. Is anyone else going to fall ill? Possibly ABC? CBS? AP? NPR? PBS? CNN? Tim Russert? Fox?

I've searched history for parrallels to this indicent, unfortunately, they all start off with "Nazi Germany, 1930-...". In our own history? This seems a huge first, and so, this device stands totally untested.

And the clock ticks. The mice scurry. I don my goggles, and like the rest of us, I'm getting my ass behind the rocks.

And what will we perceive? A whole lot of ado over nothing? Or the legal, moral and political equivalent of a supernova, consuming everything in its path for miles and miles and miles?

Or will it be somewhere in the middle? About like Watergate? About 20 or so arrests with convictions?

I have no clue. I must then, as we all must, wait and be patient.

But I swear, this waiting's killing me.