George Allen, former Governor of Virginia and of course now Senator, wants to run for the presidency, but also has to keep his Senate seat in the 2006 race.
Former Navy Secretary James Webb is going to try and take that seat away from him.
But even George Allen thinks that to be politically competitive, he needs some space between himself and the wannabe-monarchy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (in an exchange with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island), George Allen said, basically, that Vice President Cheney should be investigated if he authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information.
Here is the exchange:
WALLACE: You’re saying he should be investigating the vice president?
REED: Well, whoever the superiors are that are supposedly allegedly leaked or authorized a leak by the individual in question, Mr. Libby. I think the investigation has to go forward.
WALLACE: Senator Allen?
ALLEN: The prosecutor here, Mr. Fitzgerald, seems to me to be a very articulate, professional prosecutor. And I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate.
WALLACE: Well, there doesn’t seem to be any legal issue here. The issue seems to be more of kind of a political issue as to how you feel about the possibility that the vice president, because he would seem to be the obvious superior who was authorizing Scooter Libby, was telling him to release information which as far as we know was at that point still classified.
ALLEN: I don’t think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.
TWN agrees.
Vice President Cheney should be next on Patrick Fitzgerald’s dance card.
— Steve Clemons
