Elizabeth de la Vega: The Cannonfire Interview

dr. elsewhere here

[I only met Elizabeth de la Vega this past summer, but we had been in communication, through a mutual dear friend (who is the person who first alerted me to Cannonfire), since just after the 2004 elections. She and her husband had traveled from California to New Mexico to be poll watchers, and we had some interesting discussions about her experiences there. When Jan Schlichtmann (the lawyer in A Civil Action), asked me to help produce the inaugural installment for his web radio show, Law Talk, I asked Ms. de la Vega to participate. She was, of course, wonderful.

Since then, she has become quite a regular and prolific contributor to the canon of concerns about this administration’s questionable behaviors, from leaking the name of covert agents to eavesdropping on regular American citizens. The best way to get a list of her many articles, published in Tomdispatch.com, Salon.com, The Nation, and The LA Times, among others, is to Google her name. And be impressed; 1,600,000 items!

In that 2004 talk show and all other encounters, Ms. de la Vega has been astute, clear, sharp, bright, unassuming, gentle, polite, and really funny. She sprinkles a little humor throughout her very serious new book, US v. George W. Bush et al., including a comparison of reception to the neo-con’s “Defense Planning Guide” of 1992 (what I like to call the “Bully Manifesto”) to the reception Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner. This clever little point may have contributed to an invitation to appear on The Colbert Report tomorrow night, Thursday, December 7th. You’ll then get to see her in all her twinkling brilliance. Watch it! And be sure to tell all your friends to tell all their friends!

The book itself is as clever and accessible as she is, and precisely focused on defining for the public just how the laws apply to officials who act in the public trust. The following quote struck me as an example of what she is trying to do in the book, just state very clearly and simply what the laws have to say about individuals who violate that trust:
"[A]nyone who makes representations intending that the public will rely on them, has an affirmative obligation to make sure that they are true and accurate. Representations made with reckless indifference to their truth are as false as outright lies."

The book is an education on what this means, especially for government officials, and especially government officials who have done what she lays out so carefully and thoroughly as evidence.

So, as long promised, here is my interview with Elizabeth de la Vega.]


Dr. E: Your book is written from the point of view of a federal prosecutor, which you were for 21 years. It is thus written as an indictment, not articles of impeachment. Could you make any distinctions here between those, if any?

EDLV: Sure. A federal indictment is a criminal charge brought after a process that involves presenting evidence to a Grand Jury, and based on that evidence, the jurors decide if enough evidence exists to bring charges.

Impeachment is political; quasi-legal, but mainly political. It starts in the House, and there are various ways to initiate that process, but it starts in the House. Typically there would be hearings, and then based on the results of the hearings, articles of impeachment are drawn up. House members vote to impeach or not; if they vote in favor, then the case goes to the Senate for trial. The main thing is, it's a process, not just removal of the President.
(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)


Dr. E: Is impeachment essentially the indictment process for the President?

EDLV: It may not be such a good idea to merge the two notions because
they are separate processes. Someone could, for example, be removed from office and then criminally charged.

Dr. E: I understand from DOJ rulings in 1973 regarding Nixon and Agnew that it is not really possible to indict a sitting president.

EDLV: Right, some scholars say it is possible, but the prevailing opinion is that it's not. But my agenda here is not to suggest the indictment is what should happen; it's more to show that it could, legally, be undertaken to show conspiracy to defraud the US, and to show how that's done, what's required. I wanted to show just how the actions of Bush and his officials actually fit the elements of the crime of conspiracy to defraud the US.

As I say in the book, my number one goal is to educate the public as to what's legally required to prove the crime in order to demonstrate, in a common sense way, the legal ramifications of what we already know. And to educate with the goal of convincing the people, and through the people, convince Congress that these officials have committed these crimes.

When I wrote the book, we didn't have the Democratic majority in Congress. Congress is supposed to oversee the Executive branch, but we haven't had any semblance of oversight with the Republican leadership.

Dr. E: Hence the "Rubber Stamp Congress."

EDLV: Right. We know that the crime I target in the book, and many others, have been committed by these individuals, but I wanted to focus Congress – to the extent that's possible – on this particular instance, defrauding Congress to go to war, which I feel is by far their worst crime.

Technically, though, in the book I'm not saying any particular outcome should be pre-ordained; no prosecutor can say that. And, technically, Nancy Pelosi can’t really say that. In saying impeachment is "off the table," she is essentially judging the outcome of the entire process before anything moves forward at all, so it's not really legitimate for her to do that.

Dr. E: Though saying something is "off the table" does not preclude that it could be forced onto the table in the future.

EDLV: Right. It would be just as wrong for Congresswoman Pelosi to say impeachment is on the table. Impeachment is one step in a process that does not necessarily mean removal from office. Again, this is the point of the book, to educate people as to the strength of the evidence that shows this particular crime has been committed, as a way of encouraging the process to occur.

Dr. E: We'll get back to the issue of this new Democratic Congress before we're through here, but to stick more strictly to your book: Am I reading correctly that the hypothetical indictment itself lists 29 counts?

EDLV: No, there is really only one count, conspiracy to defraud the US government, but there are various allegations listed in the indictment. All of them go to that same crime. The thing about conspiracy is that it is an ongoing course of conduct. The important thing about conspiracy law is, for each case, you have to look at it in its entirety because the whole really is always greater than the sum of its parts. You have to look at the gestalt of the conspiracy and the fraud.

Dr. E: The thing I love most about the book is that it reads like court transcripts, which themselves read like plays or screenplays, except that court transcripts are real.

EDLV: Yeah, a lot of people have suggested making it into a play or movie.

Dr. E: That would be awesome. Definitely a fascinating mixture of reality and fiction. You stress repeatedly that your Grand Jury and indictment and witnesses are hypothetical, but that all the facts and evidence and case law are real and well-documented. If I understand the reason you wrote the book this way was that you wish to emphasize that, while we can talk a blue streak (literally) about how Bush lied, soldiers died, the really important issue is not the lying per se, but whether Bush et al., committed a crime in the process, specifically conspiracy to defraud the US government.

EDLV: Right, the key issue is whether or not they committed fraud, because there are laws - very clearly defined laws - against fraud.

What I wanted to do was first show what those laws are, then show how these defendants violated them. But there's also this, which gets to the difference between indictment and impeachment: What's required for impeachment is a high crime or misdemeanor that affects the governance of the country. The key is that somebody could have actually committed a crime, say a violation of some law, but it might not affect in any way the governance of the country.

Dr. E: Like jaywalking would not affect governance, or lying about sexual relations with a consenting adult, as long as she wasn't a spy?

EDLV: Right. Not all statutory crimes would be impeachable high crimes or misdemeanors, and not all impeachable high crimes would necessarily also constitute statutory violations.

What I wanted to show in this hypothetical indictment - conspiracy to defraud the US - is only one of many possible indictments that could be written, but in this particular one, not only do we have an abuse of governance but the commission of a statutory crime omit.

Dr. E: You frequently rely on the Enron case as an analogical frame for presenting your case to your hypothetical Grand Jury, which I found immensely helpful. Your explanation of how the laws applied to the Enron case, the laws addressing fraud, include several types of fraud. Could you give us a few examples of those types, so that the reader has a sense of just how finely tuned the judicial system is with regard to these things we're happy on the street to call "lyin' like a rug."

EDLV: The great thing about the law is that it is very much rooted in common sense. People often know they've been deceived, but they rarely know how to explain how it happened, how they know it happened, or how it might fit legal demands for proving it. One way to commit fraud is by making statements with reckless disregard for the truth. Probably with Bush this is the most prevalent type. Specifically, he and many in his administration made numbers of broad statements about WMDs.

Yet we know, for example, that in December of 2002, the President had a meeting with Tenet about the intelligence where Bush asked if this was all the case that he had. So Bush clearly had serious doubts himself about the strength of the intelligence. That's when Tenet is reported to have said it was "a slam dunk." Thereafter Bush nevertheless made all these statements about Saddam's WMDs, how he'd used them in the past, and his intent to increase them. But he had already admitted that he himself had very serious doubts about the strength of the case and, legally, the mere statement "it's a slam dunk" could not be taken as a reasonable offering of evidence to assuage those doubts. Therefore, his statements assuring the public that "we know there are weapons of mass destruction" would be statements made with reckless disregard for the truth. Bush had in fact, in other words, admitted that not even he believed there was a strong case, but he nevertheless went on to very vigorously present a different picture to the public. There were many examples of this kind of fraud in their presentation of the case for war.

Another type of fraud would be just saying something in a misleading manner, a deliberate misrepresentation even if it does not actually assert any fact whatsoever, but rather simply creates a false implication. Like Bush and his aides would say "remember the lessons of 9/11," and then they'd say "the risks of inaction outweigh the risks of action," linking them - often in the same sentence - when in fact they were not really linked.

Another type of fraud would be the half-truth, such as when Cheney over and over again would tell the story that we know Iraq has WMDs because Saddam's son-in-law told us that they did. But the part Cheney left out was that the son-in-law also said that the WMDs had been destroyed. Obviously the people needed to know that part of the story in order to make a good decision about whether or not we should be attacking that country.

And then there is the material omission. That's really one of the key types of frauds charged in the Enron case and one of the key types of fraud used by the administration. As one example, Ken Lay was trying to persuade his employees that he had faith in the company's stability by telling them that he'd just purchased $4 million worth of Enron stock. However, he left out the rather key fact that he'd also just sold $24 million worth of stock.

Dr. E: Your explanation of conspiracy is also helpful, because it shows that folks don't actually need to be sitting down at the big polished table to discuss the details of the plan in order to be guilty of this crime. When applied to conspiracy theories in general, it softens the criteria. But does it really mean that folks only need to be operating, not ensemble but generally toward the same goal with roughly the same info, agenda, and strategies? Help us draw a line between this and just the coincidental convergence of like minds toward a predictably common goal.

EDLV: Well, the thing about conspiracy law is that it's been around 600 to 700 years. It was the focus of legal arguments in the Enron case. Technically, it's not something sinister, but colloquially the term has definitely been denigrated and made to seem ridiculous. Legally, though, it's a very neutral term: it just means working together to commit a crime; it doesn't necessarily mean there was a specific or explicit agreement to commit one. The focus is on the actions and statements of the people in question. In other words, legally, prosecutors just have to show that the defendants were acting in concert. For example, Andrew Card and Karl Rove, speaking for the White House Iraq Group, actually announced that they were going to market this war on behalf of the administration.

When I prepared the book, I read every single WH statement I could find, and over and over again, every single spokesperson and aide and official all said the very same things. Then, when there would be public opposition to a particular point, the Administration spokespersons would all change the statements in the very same way. Using common sense, this is clearly evidence of a conspiracy – concerted action to commit a fraud. And you're told in court, the jurors are told in court, to make commonsense inferences about such facts. That is a standard jury instruction.

Dr. E: One particularly nice outcome of your presentation in the Grand Jury setting is that we get a nicely condensed, chronological version of the events leading up to our invasion of Iraq, from the Gulf War through PNAC and 9/11 and our invasion of Afghanistan, all as background for justifying the invasion. In reading the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) of October 16, 2002, it does not appear that Bush was authorized to use force under the conditions that actually existed at the time he did. The way you lay out the facts, it does seem Bush was in violation of that resolution. And it certainly appears he was in violation of the UN resolution 1441, does it not?

EDLV: True, well, you don't even have to have a separate violation to decide if this goes to the issue of governance, because when you talk about taking the country to war, nothing could possibly be more egregious in terms of governance and breach of trust and their oath of office and so on.

I can't really speak to UN violations; that's beyond my project. Believe it or not, even though I have written this book on indicting the President of the United States, along with his highest officials, I'm actually quite cautious. I don't want to venture opinions on matters I haven't fully researched and investigated.

Dr. E: More pertinent to today's situation, how would AUMF apply or be applied to Bush and Cheney's plans to invade Iran? There appears to be an inclination within a certain camp to encourage the new Democratic Congress to terminate AUMF early in January in order to block those plans.

EDLV: I don't have any inside knowledge about what politicians are going to do, but the AUMF was clear and it sure seems clear that when Bush invaded Iraq, the AUMF that was in place was violated. In fact, Congressman Waxman of California wrote a powerful letter right before the invasion, a great letter, raising many of the questions I address in the book, questions no one was asking in open debate. Everyone in the WH was completely on notice with regard to those questions and misgivings about the strength of their case to push forward with the invasion. And the issue of being "on notice" is very, very important when considering the crime of fraud. Just as with the Enron case, being on notice means that reasonable questions have been raised about the claims an individual or group is making, such that the claims being made are left in doubt. We can quibble about how much doubt, but for the government's argument to invade Iraq, their claims were certainly not even close to unequivocal. Here again, the issues relate to misrepresentations and half truths. You can't just pick out the parts that work for your argument and disregard the rest. Though we know that this just seems to be the way these guys operate.

The same rules apply to investigators and prosecutors as well, which is something I briefly address in the book, and it's elaborated in a footnote. The law is such that, as an investigator or prosecutor, if you apply for a search warrant but don't put in all the evidence, supporting and not, pro and con, you could be subject to prosecution yourself. In fact, a prosecutor and a federal agent in Michigan are now under indictment on charges that they did just that.

Dr. E: This next question has a long setup because it comes from what to me was the most powerful "between the lines" message. Reading the indictment and remembering the historical events that led to our invasion of Iraq kept bringing to mind the comment regarding the 'reality-based community' so famously quoted by Ron Suskind. I'd love to know who actually said these words, but regardless, the full quote from Suskind’s book is this:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will-we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The run-up to the war thus fits into this frame where these guys just do what they want, create the reality they want, feeding it to the dumb chumps who report it to the dumber chumps who vote.

The way you keep coming back to how the WHIG and others in the administration literally marketed and sold the war came across as almost subtext for me, and really drove home just how powerful advertising and marketing can be. These are predicated on the fundamental notion of creating a reality to sell to the public, highlighting only the good, ignoring the detractors, slamming the competition, and then shoving it all down the collective public throat, ultimately shaping public opinion. This is all therefore essentially propaganda; the fraud they committed to wage this war was nothing more, or less than, propaganda.

EDLV: Absolutely; that's exactly what it is.

Dr. E: So this is the reality of our marketing media, hence Card's comment in early September of '02 that you don't introduce a new product before Labor Day. The public seems quite jaundiced on this topic when they think about it out loud, yet they continue to be swayed by it, at least up to a point. Perhaps, eventually, making Lincoln's point about not fooling all the people all the time.

In addressing the comparison of the Enron case to the administration's fraud on Iraq, help us understand more fully just how far individuals and corporations can take propaganda, how far they can legally go to create these illusions - delusions, really - that have so profoundly shaped America and now our world for so many decades.

EDLV: The law is very clear on this point: It's not up to the public to track down all the falsehoods. There is no caveat emptor when it comes to what public servants say and present to the public. It's the responsibility of those in office, who've taken that oath, to do due diligence. This is different from those things that government officials genuinely cannot tell the public for national security reasons or such. But that differs significantly from deliberately misleading the public and telling flat out lies, where it becomes a crime. The whole thing, not just the lies, but the various other types of deceit that work together to make up the fraud. Most people are smart enough to know they can't just flat out lie and get away with it, so they carefully craft those half-truths and misrepresentations that leave out the important - but unhelpful for them - information. For instance, Bush's statement in his SOTU address in January of 2003, those sixteen words claiming that Britain had information about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa. It's a technically accurate statement; Britain had received such information, but Bush was fully on notice regarding the many misgivings expressed by experts in the field about the quality of that information. He was again not sharing all the details necessary for the Congress and the American people to make an informed decision.

Dr. E: Along these lines, I was struck by your exposure of this criterion for fraud, that it doesn't matter whether or not the victims were suckered by it; the focus in criminal cases is on the defendants' efforts to intentionally deceive. Then how can your hypothetical Agent Estrada have stated that it's ok for politicians to lie in the campaign, but not once they've taken office? Are they not committing fraud in both cases, whether campaigning or in office?

EDLV: I think what he says is, it might be considered ok, because we're used to it. I'm not saying it is ok, but the crime of defrauding the US government requires interfering with the work of a government agency, and I don't think that element is in play in campaigning. Plus, they haven't taken that oath of office yet, so they're not committed to that official relationship of trust.

Dr. E: I'd want to argue that the public is the most important government "agency." But to avoid distracting us from the book, I'll just say that the kinds of ruthless campaigning we've become jaundiced to might not be a crime unless legislation were passed to either place certain restrictions against committing fraud while campaigning, or maybe even requiring candidates to take some sort of preliminary oath of "intent to serve."

EDLV: Well, sure, but that's not going to happen, not as long as the legislators making the laws are the same ones who are campaigning!

Dr. E: In the book, you frame your case narrowly just like a good prosecutor should, around the selling of the Iraq invasion. But have you speculated beyond the fraud to take us to war, to the fraud to bankrupt what was a surplus when this same group took power? Or the fraud to sell off Social Security? Or the fraud to emasculate the Constitution by violating our Bill of Rights? Or the fraud to skirt the Geneva Conventions and engage in torture? Or the fraud to steal elections? You get the idea..

EDLV: Ah, well, of course, I think there is certainly ample evidence that the wiretapping shows violation of laws, that's pretty clear-cut. And the torture and so on. I think the Military Commissions Act, at least, will ultimately be found unconstitutional.

Dr. E: Even by this Supreme Court?

EDLV: Well, it's hard to say. But there are lots of people who are, I think, doing a great job in keeping up with each of those issues, so many of those issues, and I allude in the book to several authors who have looked at some of these other crimes. But I wanted to focus on just this one, so as not to dilute the message.

Dr. E: Also when considering the parameters of the indictment, why not include Ari Fleischer in the list of defendants, as the mouthpiece for all these fraudulent representations? And the other members of the WHIG? And why not all those thousands of employees in the EOP, OVP, NSC, DOD, DOS? Or, for that matter, so many members of the press?

EDLV: Yeah, well, the press, sure, but they're in a very different situation than our government officials – that oath again – though I don't have any disagreement with the notion that many in the press were complicit. However, that's a whole other book. In fact, there are several of them out, really good ones.

On the question of indicting all the other players, this may come as something of a disappointment to everyone out there, but in almost any criminal investigation there are other people who could be indicted or even just looked at with more scrutiny, who aren't. But just for this book, I couldn't get into all the other people who might be considered co-conspirators, though I think a lot of them really were involved. What was interesting was they would change their statements as if acting ensemble. For example, on September 8th, 2002, Rice went on TV saying the aluminum tubes Iraq was seeking and buying were "only suitable" for nuclear use. Immediately there was quite an outcry from many experts who openly refuted this statement. So within just a couple of days, everyone who was making any public statements changed them thereafter to drop the "only" and say just "suitable," which is quite an obvious indication of conspiracy. Even by making that change, though, they were still leaving out very strong expert opinion that the aluminum tubes were not suitable at all for use in developing nuclear weapons.

Dr. E: I think that pretty much covers most of the questions I had, as well as those submitted by our readers. In matters related to, but not focused on, the selling of the Iraq invasion, Marcie Wheeler, or Emptywheel, has asked a good question, in two parts, regarding the Plame case and your articles on the possibility of a pardon for Libby.

In the first part, she points out that in those articles you don't address the civil case, which won't be settled before the trial is due to start. She feels that this seems to throw your analysis into question, since until the WH can be sure it will have the civil case dismissed, pardoning Libby would in no way prevent embarrassing court testimony. She's therefore also curious how a Libby pardon would affect his requirement to testify in the civil case.

EDLV: Well, as to the first part of the question, think of it this way: if you're getting attacked in a fortress from various sides, you just have to knock down assailants one by one as they're coming at you. Neither the WH nor Libby's legal team really have the luxury of arranging the cases in some order that will make it easier or even predictable for them. So they'll just have to deal with the Libby case and then the civil case, and the civil case will take a long time. The fact that this civil case is out there wouldn't stop them from trying to get rid of this criminal one against Libby, and vice versa. Libby's lawyers are working very hard to make as much of that go away for him as they can. They just want to get through the next thing that comes their way, and so does everyone in the WH, who are just stumbling from one election to the next.

As for Libby's pardon affecting his testimony in a civil case, that's actually a good question, and something I'd have to research more thoroughly. My gut reaction is that he'd lose his 5th amendment rights and would likely have to testify, just as he would then be compelled to testify before Congress if so called, but there are still issues of privilege that could come into play.

Dr. E: The second part of her question I'll quote directly instead of paraphrasing. "As I understand it from 31 Days (about Nixon), a pardon is tantamount to admission of guilt (per Burdick v. USA). If that's so, it seems like a pardon would make it a lot harder to dismiss a civil case, since it would effectively be an admission that 1) Libby broke the law and 2) did something not included in his work duties (which is the hurdle to the civil case). So a pardon would mean the Wilsons could take Libby to the cleaners AND probably have an easier time getting to Dick's Halliburton-fattened wallet. But then, IANAL, so I'm sure de la Vega has thought of these issues. I'd like to see her explain how the pardon relates to the civil case."

EDLV: The important thing to understand about legal analyses is that they are focused, generally, on one issue at a time. If the court were deciding whether to dismiss a civil case, for example, it would look at the individual grounds for dismissal one by one- in the case of the Libby civil case, the first one that's been raised is executive immunity. In deciding that issue, the court would not – and should not – be factoring in whether Libby or anyone in fact actually committed the acts that are alleged. The court has to focus on each issue and apply the relevant law to that issue, not the issue of whether someone is culpable, or how the case fits into the larger, public world.

Having said that, however, the administration obviously has to consider not just the legal ramifications of a pardon – and there are pros and cons in that analysis – but also the political implications, which is another very complicated equation. The existence of the criminal case against Libby, as well as the civil case – and the fact that there is an ongoing investigation by Fitzgerald – makes a very interesting, multi-dimensional chess game. But it's important to keep the legal analyses and the political analyses separate.

Certainly, I don't want Libby to be pardoned and I think it would be outrageous if the President did that, but I would not be at all surprised if it happened, because the legal and political upsides of a pardon for the administration may well outweigh the downsides. We should know pretty soon, however.

Dr. E: In the introduction to your book, you assert that all of us are potentially passive bystanders, citing the infamous murder of Kitty Genovese. You then come close to "indicting" the Democrats, as it were, for making a deliberate decision for "good political strategy" instead of doing the right thing in this particular case of invading Iraq. You in fact suggest the reader "[a]sk any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes," and you posit that of course the answer is no. However, is it not worth considering the entirety of the situation, and how some acts of courage can be ultimately foolish when the results are seen in perspective. If you look at the mafia mentality that has dominated the administration and its congressional leadership, not to mention the lapdog media, I'd say for the Democrats it's been something of a case of trying to defend yourself against pit vipers in your face and a pack of hyenas on your ass. Is there not a case to be made in such circumstances for moving very carefully, considering your options and their implications with vigilance and foresight, and making no big or hasty moves?

EDLV: That's a difficult question. I don't mean to attack the Democrats and I am certainly not "indicting" them, but I think you used that term colloquially. But I do think in the end, when you are faced with something as serious as this has been, you just simply have to do the right thing, you have to insist on doing the right thing. And especially if you can do it as a group. If more Democrats had stood their ground and voted their conscience instead of choosing "good political strategy," it would have forced a more open debate, so the truth might have come out sooner, who knows? But as it happens now, the Democrats' situation is much harder. Because so many of them abandoned the right thing for political reasons, they are now in a difficult position. Opting for good political strategy over the right thing takes away the moral high ground.

Dr. E: So now that the Democrats have control in Congress, we're expecting subpoena power to be exercised with due diligence come January, and we also fully expect Bush and Cheney to claim executive privilege, national secrets, etc. What do you think will come of that phase of it?

EDLV: I have no idea, but it's going to be a fight. Cheney has already signaled a fight. But again, I hope the Democrats will stick to their guns and repeat to the public that they are simply doing their job of oversight, and if they don't investigate and oversee the Executive branch, they're not doing their duties. And they need to remind everyone that this is not vengeful, there's nothing vindictive about this, though of course the Republicans will try to suggest that the Democrats are being just that. The Democrats have to be unflinching about this.

Dr. E: If it goes to the Supreme Court, as it did with Nixon, how do you expect Roberts's court to rule?

EDLV: I can't begin to say. Too many variables. No case or controversy, as they say. You have to have all the facts, and until we do, that will remain simply a good question.

Dr. E: Well, we’d like to thank you for clarifying our other questions, and for taking the time from these busy days surrounding the release date. We here at Cannonfire of course wish you the best of luck with this very important book.

EDLV: Thank you; it’s been a pleasure.

[Don't forget: Ms. de la Vega will be appearing on Thursday night's "Colbert Report." Be sure to watch it! And buy the book; I am giving it my highest recommendation!]