Nixon blamed his secretary, Rosemary Woods. Who will Cheney blame?

It was barely a year ago that Rosemary Woods passed away. Woods began work for Richard Nixon while he was a freshman senator, in 1950. She would stay with him until his resignation in 1974.

Woods will go down in history as the woman who was believed to be responsible for the erasure of 18 1/2 minutes of crucial evidence, before it could be turned over to Watergate investigators seeking to impeach Nixon. She posed for this photograph, in which she demonstrated how she managed to accidentally erase the tape by stretching one foot forward while reaching back to get the phone.

I thought of her when I read this article, which talks about Plame-gate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's efforts to resist Scooter Libby's demand for production of all the documents that Fitzgerald has reviewed, including highly classified documents. Scooter's lawyers claim to need the documents to fight charges of perjury and lying to the FBI.

The last paragraph was especially interesting:

“Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.”

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”