Wednesday, October 26, 2005

As we await word from the federal grand jury hearing the CIA leak case (and despite all your phone calls and emails, I really don't know... or pretend to know much more than anyone else), I am reminded of these words written in his diary by Leonard Garment, an former law partner, and later a White House counsel for Richard Nixon, on Christmas Day, 1972, when James McCord was indicted for his role in the Watergate break-in.

Garment was in turn quoting Jose Ortega y Gasset: "We do not know what is happening, and that is what happening."

That seems relevant for this moment.

But even if we learn tomorrow whether the federal grand jury brings charges or not, and if so, who is charged, Gasset's line will be even more relevant then as it is today.

Even though everyone in Washington breathlessly awaits the grand jury, their decisions as to whether to charge won't be an end... as so much a beginning of something much more important and vast.

We will soon hear back from the grand jury, but that will only raise additional questions, taking the President and the nation into murky, uncharted waters.

And once again, we will be left saying: "We do not know what is happening, and that is what is happening."

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