Some very good answers for people who aren't clear on what happened:
Bogus Spin #1: Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went after Libby even after learning that Richard Armitage had been Bob Novak's "primary source" for his column outing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee.
Wrong. Armitage made his admission in early October 2003, nearly three months before Fitzgerald was appointed. So it should be clear that Fitzgerald wasn't appointed just to find out who leaked to Novak. In fact, this means that -- even with Armitage's confession in hand -- there was so much evidence of wrongdoing that a longtime GOP loyalist like John Ashcroft felt he had no choice but to recuse himself and allow the appointment of a special counsel.
Bogus Spin #2: Even so, Libby wasn't the only one who leaked about Plame.
Maybe not, but it turns out that every other Bush administration who leaked did so with information they got as a result of Libby's actions. Ari Fleischer testified during Scooter's trial that Libby told him over lunch about Plame working for the CIA, and Karl Rove reportedly told a similar story to the grand jury that indicted Libby. Meanwhile, Armitage and Bushite press flack Dan Bartlett both found out through a State Department memo that was produced in response to questions that Libby had asked a top department official about Wilson's trip to Niger. If Libby (and his boss, Dick Cheney) had been content to reply to Wilson's criticisms on their merits rather than by rattling cages in search of fodder for personal attacks, none of the other officials would ever have been able to leak about Plame.
Bogus Spin #3: The trial was just Libby's word against that of a bunch of reporters.
Although three reporters did testify, they were preceded on the stand by six different government officials who each testified to having conversations with Libby about Joe Wilson's wife before the date when Libby first claimed to have heard it from a reporter. It was these officials' testimony, more than that of the reporters, that convicted Libby.
Bogus Spin #4: Libby was convicted for having a faulty memory.
It's never mentioned in the mainstream media, but Scooter didn't just "forget" telling reporters about Joe Wilson's wife working for the CIA, and deny it when he really had told them.
No, Libby's "faulty memory" caused him not only to deny where he had learned about Plame -- a note produced in the trial showed Vice President Cheney had told him she worked in the Counterproliferation Department of the CIA (where the majority of employees are covert) -- but to invent stories saying he HAD leaked to reporters when he hadn't. He claimed to have been the first to tell Matt Cooper about Wilson's wife, thereby covering up the fact that Karl Rove had done so. And he shielded Fleischer by falsely claiming to have told the Post's Glenn Kessler as well, apparently trying to cover for the Post's October 12, 2003 report that a journalist for the Post (who turned out to be Walter Pincus) had been leaked to -- a news story that was found, with key passages underlined, in Libby's files.
Thus Libby was convicted not just of perjury but of intentionally lying in order to obstruct the investigation. And what George Bush did yesterday was intended to make sure he got away with it.
and a great example of Bush's inconsistencies. Or hypocrisies. Or both.
What's excessive? President Bush, who suddenly hates excessive punishments, once refused to commute the death sentence of a 33-year-old mentally retarded black man with an IQ of around 60 and the functional skills of a 7-year-old boy.
10 years ago last May, President Bush and Alberto Gonzales received a request for clemency on the day Terry Washington was to be executed for killing a college student in 1987. President Bush skimmed Gonzales' incomplete summary and denied clemency.
Terry Washington was dead before the sun went down.
Regarding the record 152 executions during his two terms as governor, Bush "wrote" in his autobiography, A Charge To Keep, "I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own."
2 comments:
Another aspect of spin coming out of this is that it is just politics as usual. While the naked exercise of power known as a presidential pardon is politics as usual, the circumstances are unusual. Yet another is that the entire affair has been blown out of proportion. I can think of few things more important than investigating a White House effort to shut down legitimate questions about casus belli using character assassination in the press reliant on actual national security information. It is unfortunate that Mr. Libby chose to maintain his loyalties to his masters and took the rap rather than letting his boss hang. I wonder if this is a snapshot of the Watergate affair without Deepthroat.
I get the impression that Dick Cheney learned a lot from Watergate - what NOT to do. He's managed to get people in the inner circle that are unfailingly loyal. I've often wondered if these people all drank the kool-aid, or if they've been bought... I lean towards ideological comrades, as they're more reliable - but when you've got a president willing to cash your blank checks, maybe Cheney can buy them, too.
It is a daily hope of mine that SOMEBODY in the inside proves less loyal than Dick counted on. Less loyal, or more patriotic. Otherwise, I don't see this ending well for the rest of us.
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