One of the polite fictions we were all supposed to buy throughout all of this is that the confidentiality waivers were "coerced" and therefore they weren't good enough. Of course, this polite fiction allowed everyone to look good as long as we all pretended to buy it. Bush got to look good by telling his staff to cooperate. Potential perps got to look good because they played along by granting the waivers. And, the journalists go to look good by pretending that they were standing up for some grand principle by refusing to accept "coerced waivers."
But, there was no actual coercion invovlved here, just a bunch of theater. If Bush says "play along or I fire you" to people on his staff, then they should either play along genuinely or allow themselves to be fired (as if). It isn't as if Scooter Libby or Karl Rove would go hungry if they no longer worked for the Bush. We're not talking about some low level civil servant whistleblower throwing their career down the toilet. We're talking about rich, powerful people who would continue being rich and powerful people in other ways if forced to leave their jobs. Big deal.
What a crock.
