“I wanted to run, originally, because the party really inexpensive feather hair extensions needed a face lift and some new energy, and I think I succeeded,’’ Nassour said.
“We have no debt, a good reputation, and we’ve always tried to greet everyone with an open door, whether they are candidates, the press, or members of the party,’’ she said.
The resignation comes as the state GOP gears up for Brown’s reelection campaign. At least six Democrats, including Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, have announced they will seek the Democratic Senate nomination.
“The 2012 election year is going to require the party to have a chairman who is focused on the job and able to commit to the long hours of fund-raising and campaigning,’’ Nassour wrote. “However, family must come first. It is my preference to focus on my family and give someone else the opportunity to lead our party through the upcoming election year. By making a change of leadership feather extensions for hair in 2011, we give a new chairman the time to get up to speed and lead us to victory in 2012.’’
Among those mentioned as a possible successor is Mary Connaughton, who narrowly lost an election for state auditor in 2010.
In July 2007, then-President George W. Bush commuted Libby's prison term but rejected Cheney's request to grant a pardon.
Cheney acknowledged he also had "disagreements" with others in the Bush administration over the investigation and has criticized then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, for not coming forward about the leak. During Libby's trial, it emerged that Armitage was a source of Plame's identity.
When the moderator of Monday's gathering noted Fitzgerald's office was literally across the street from where Cheney was speaking, the former vice president responded, "Is he looking for me?"
Unlike Cheney's measured criticism, his daughter, Liz, told the crowd that wholesale earrings with free shipping Libby's prosecution "was a tremendous miscarriage of justice."
"I think that Patrick Fitzgerald knew when he came in as a special prosecutor that Rich Armitage was the leaker, and yet that investigation continued," she said. "And it got to the point where somebody had to be indicted for something. And an innocent man was indicted wrongly, and I think it's a shameful disgrace."
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney said Fitzgerald had no comment.
The appearance by the Cheneys was part of a book tour for "In My Time," a biography of the former vice president that the two co-wrote. In the book, Dick Cheney is critical of Powell and Armitage for not revealing the source of the leak to the president.
Fitzgerald, in his 10th year as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, has been a leading figure in the prosecution of political corruption cases, including gaining convictions against former Illinois Govs. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, and George Ryan, a Republican.
