Here's an interesting note: this past week, a federal judge by the name of John D. Bates ruled that he would not hear the case of Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson against the Vice President on jurisdictional grounds. This decision, which didn't speak to the case itself, was heralded as a win for the Bush administration.

The case itself was a defamation lawsuit based on VP Cheney's leaking of the identity of the covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame as retaliation to public statements made by her husband, Joseph Wilson. We all know that story, and yet Republicans, even after the opposite was revealed in investigations (proving their propensity to lie [not just mislead]) continue to suggest that Ms. Plame was not a covert agent. The investigation (by Patrick Fitzgerald) has proven that she was.

But the interesting note in this is that the aforementioned judge Bates is actually the same guy that sided on a second high profile case with...(drumroll please)...Vice President Dick Cheney! He threw out the case that would have forced the VP to disclose the members of his energy task force.

This guy, if he isn't Cheney's hatchet-man is turning out to be further evidence of the tampering this administration is willing to do to erode fairness and justice in our nation.