{"id":8587,"date":"2007-03-12T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-13T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=8587"},"modified":"2007-03-12T17:03:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-13T00:03:00","slug":"more-on-the-libby-debacle-updated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=8587","title":{"rendered":"More on the Libby debacle (UPDATED)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan has been quite adamant<\/a> that we should not allow the upcoming Waxman-Plame show hearing to turn into yet a further reification of the bogus victim narrative Plame, the Reid Democrats, and professional liar Joseph Wilson have been peddling for the last several years—a narrative they have been trying to bolster by finessing the outcome of the Libby trial not as an example of an appalling procedural conviction but as a symbolic conviction that speaks to a larger underlying conspiracy, one that they “prove” by noting that Libby was convicted of not just of perjury but of obstructing justice.\n<\/p>\n

\nOf course, that there was no underlying crime—else, why no prosecution of Richard Armitage?—seems not to stop those intent on pinning something<\/i> on Dick Cheney and the Bush administration that carries with it the patina of criminality.  Which is why they’ve allowed themselves to imagine deeper, darker conspiracies while conspicuously ignoring the failings of their star “witnesses,” Plame and Wilson—which in turn has allowed them to conclude that this conviction in fact means<\/i> more than it does, as witnessed by Harry Reid’s appalling “summary” of the Libby conviction as reflective of a culture of corruption within the White House.\n<\/p>\n

\nI wrote about all this last week<\/a>—and I also discussed the issue on an upcoming “Blog Week in Review” with Austin Bay and Neo-neocon—but it’s worth noting again and again, if only to push back against concerted efforts to ossify as “truth” a narrative of events that simply does not track with fact or evidence.\n<\/p>\n

\nTo that end, here’s Charles Krauthammer from his March 9 column<\/a> calling for an expeditious pardon:<\/p>\n

\n

There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you’re Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten.\n<\/p>\n

\nScooter Libby has just been convicted of four felonies that could theoretically give him 25 years in jail for . . . what? Misstating when he first heard a certain piece of information, namely the identity of Joe Wilson’s wife.\n<\/p>\n

\n[…]\n<\/p>\n

\nFormer presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer testified under oath that he had not told Post reporter Walter Pincus about Mrs. Wilson. Pincus testified under oath that Fleischer definitely had.\n<\/p>\n

\nObviously, one is not telling the truth. But there is no reason to believe that either one is deliberately lying. Pincus and Fleischer are as fallible as any of us. They spend their days receiving and giving information. They can’t possibly be expected to remember not only every piece but precisely when they received every piece.\n<\/p>\n

\nShould Scooter Libby? He was famously multitasking a large number of national security and domestic issues, receiving hundreds of pieces of information every day from dozens of sources. Yet special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald chose to make Libby’s misstatements about the timing of the receipt of one piece of information—Mrs. Wilson’s identity—the great white whale of his multimillion-dollar prosecutorial juggernaut.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhy? Because on his essential charge as special prosecutor—find and punish who had leaked Valerie Plame’s name—he had nothing. No conspiracy, no felony, no crime, not even the claim that she was a covert agent covered by the nondisclosure law. Fitzgerald knew the leaker from the very beginning. It was not Libby but Richard Armitage. He also knew that the “leak” by the State Department’s No. 2 official—a fierce bureaucratic opponent of the White House, especially the vice president’s office—was an innocent offhand disclosure made to explain how the CIA had improbably chosen Wilson for a WMD mission. (He was recommended by his CIA wife.) Everyone agrees that Fitzgerald’s perjury case against Libby hung on the testimony of NBC’s Tim Russert. Libby said that he heard about Plame from Russert. Russert said he had never discussed it. The jury members who have spoken said they believed Russert.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd why should they not? Russert is a perfectly honest man who would not lie. He was undoubtedly giving his best recollection.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut he is not the pope. Given that so many journalists and administration figures were shown to have extremely fallible memories, is it possible that Russert’s memory could have been faulty?\n<\/p>\n

\nI have no idea. But we do know that Russert once denied calling up a Buffalo News reporter to complain about a story. Russert later apologized for the error when he was shown the evidence of a call he had genuinely and completely forgotten.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is a second instance of Russert innocently misremembering. He stated under oath that he did not know that one may not be accompanied by a lawyer to a grand jury hearing. This fact, in and of itself, is irrelevant to the case, except that, as former prosecutor Victoria Toensing points out, the defense had tapes showing Russert saying on television three times that lawyers are barred from grand jury proceedings.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis demonstration of Russert’s fallibility was never shown to the jury. The judge did not allow it. He was upset with the defense because it would not put Libby on the stand—his perfect Fifth Amendment right—after hinting in the opening statement that it might. He therefore denied the defense a straightforward demonstration of the fallibility of the witness whose testimony was most decisive.\n<\/p>\n

\nToensing thinks this might be the basis for overturning the verdict upon appeal. I hope so. This is a case that never should have been brought, originating in the scandal that never was, in search of a crime—violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act—that even the prosecutor never alleged. That’s the basis for a presidential pardon.<\/b> It should have been granted long before this egregious case came to trial. It should be granted now without any further delay.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThis case, as others have noted, was never supposed to be about manipulation of intelligence in the run up to the war in Iraq—though that it is how it was pursued, and that is how it is being spun.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut there is no reason why the White House should not have corrected the record on Wilson’s lies, and there was no crime in doing it the way it is typically done inside the beltway, though on-background leaks to reporters.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe fact is, as the trial showed definitively, that Valerie Plame recommended her husband for a diplomatic mission, the report from which the CIA analyzed and found, per the findings of bipartisan Senate Intel Report, to bolster Administration claims that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat Wilson never saw the larger picture—which enveloped not only his report but the intel of the British—is not the fault of the Administration; that they sought to correct the record of an arrogant, politically-motivated attention seeker who was being immediately embraced by those who have always wanted to prove that the administration “lied” us into war<\/i>, then, is hardly surprising.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat it was Armitage who leaked the story doesn’t, of course, fit with the conspiracy narrative.  But no matter:  who needs facts when you have gut instincts and emotion, and when you are absolutely set in your belief that Dick Cheney is evil, and that the Administration is filled with liars and fiends.\n<\/p>\n

\nCan’t prove it?  No problem.  “Massage” the truth a bit.  After all, it’s for the greater good<\/i> to do so—and if doing so leads to the defeat of EVIL, well, then the ends justify the means, right?\n<\/p>\n

\nRemember <\/a>your Glenn Greenwald(s):<\/p>\n

\n

There are some people who treat our conflicts with the Bush administration and their followers as just a matter of basic, friendly political and policy differences\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dalong the lines of \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cwhat should the rate of capital gains tax be?\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d or \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cwhat type of laws can best encourage employers to provide more benefits to their employees\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dand therefore, we treat people who support the administration with respect and civility and simply have nice, clean discussions to sort out our differences among well-intentioned people.\n<\/p>\n

\n That isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t how I see that, and nobody should come to this blog expecting that. I don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t think I\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2ve done anything to lead anyone to expect otherwise. I see the Bush movement and its various component parts as a plague and a threat, as anything but well-intentioned. My goal, politically speaking, is to do what I can to undermine it and the institutions that have both supported and enabled it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOr, if you like your agendas more baldly announced, here’s Greenwaldian lapdog Mona<\/a>, writing in the comments at High Clearing yesterday in response to, of all people, BRD<\/a>—who is cordial to a fault with the various trolls who seek to re-direct threads around these parts:<\/p>\n

\n

You operate from assumptions I find politically<\/b> dangerous and which it is among my goals to render impotent in the national conversation.\n<\/p>\n

\n You are part of the political pathology whose effectiveness I seek to neutralize; dialogue isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t on my agenda<\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWell then.  While remarkably anti-liberal, it certainly doesn’t suffer from the typical obfuscation Greenwald likes to beard his rhetorical gambits with.\n<\/p>\n

\nChalk that up to inexperience, I guess.\n<\/p>\n

\n[all emphases mine].\n<\/p>\n

\n*****
\n
\nupdate<\/i><\/b>:  Mona accuses me of dishonestly representing her comment.  I did no such thing, as, not wanting to revisit her cesspool, I simply quoted a comment left by BRD<\/a>.  So there was no intent to be dishonest.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor sake of fairness, though, I post more completely Mona’s thoughts below (all emphases mine)<\/p>\n

\n

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have zero intention of engaging BRD in a substantive discussion springing from the deranged, absurd spewings in his posts. I do not undertake exchanges with persons who \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cthink\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d at that level and thus risk legitimatising their fevered and obnoxious premises; what I do do is highlight how the modern GOP\/right-wing has destroyed civil discourse in the body politic by foisting repugnant memes, themes and narratives on the public, and I intend to hold examples of same up for the ridicule and exposure they merit, so as to \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cunmainstream\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d them. That is not my only interest nor the only focus of my blogging, but it most definitely is one of them.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

BRD: I do not believe I could have made it any clearer that my disdain \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d contemptuous amusement, really \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is for your premises,<\/b> far, far more than for your prose. You operate from assumptions I find politically dangerous and which it is among my goals to render impotent in the national conversation. Debating those premises with you would not be fruitful, any more so than I found it to be useful to engage Jeff and his commenters in attempts at reasoned exchange quite some time ago.\n<\/p>\n

\nI no longer aspire to \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cunderstand\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d or persuade people who think as Protein Wisdom bloggers\/fans do. You are part of the political pathology whose effectiveness I seek to neutralize; dialogue isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t on my agenda.<\/b> I mean that with no animus or snark; Cernig is a nice guy and I see he engaged you at his comments section. I, however, have been down that road and learned it is futile, and have no intention of going down it again.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Exactly right. Back in the 90s I was no particular Bill Clinton fan, but I began to become uncomfortable with the right\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s vile, base and sheerly maniacal hatred of both him and his wife. Nothing was to [sic] grotesque or extreme to say about the Clintons \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or their daughter. The right\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s real sickness began then.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nAt this point, I don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t think a lot of neocons and other Bush supporters see \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or can be made to see \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d how gross their views and assumptions are, and some are coy enough to only imply them or to obfuscate and deny the only reasonable (repugnant) meaning of what they do publish. Many righty bloggers, with right-wing radio and Fox leading the way, have imposed some pretty foul memes and narratives and made these \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cnormal\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d discourse; this normalization needs to be undone.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nI do what I can to effect that undoing.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nGoldstein is entirely correct about one thing he wrote in comments above: I\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2m a moralist, and not infrequently I do find him and his ilk outrageous; I don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t generally stifle my outrage. What he said about all that is completely accurate. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI don’t believe this substantively changes the clipped version quoted earlier, but there you have it.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe “right” is vile, maniacal, deranged, absurd, contemptuous, pathological, base, gross, foul, manipulated by FOX News and rightwing radio, and filled with haters suffering from sickness—when they aren’t being obfuscatory and cleverly disguising their pernicious, non-normative memes as somehow just a difference of opinion rather than as a CANCER to “proper,” “civilized” discourse that those views “truly” are (particularly when Mona gets to define those parameters).\n<\/p>\n

\nWhich is why, while free speech is well and good in theory<\/i>, in practice, engaging the speech of “the right” is to give credence to poison and hate, and so it is the goal of Mona and Greenwald, et al., to SAVE DISCOURSE ITSELF from those vile, maniacal, deranged, absurd, contemptuous, pathological, gross, foul puppets clever enough to try to use it to poison people far less sensitive<\/i> to their gambits than Mona, Greewald, and others like them—who, GOD BLESS THEM, are able to see through the lies<\/i> and save simple, good-hearted, innocent Americans<\/i> from being caught in their AWFUL RHETORICAL SNARES!\n<\/p>\n

\nGee.  I hope somebody at least sends you a card, Mona! \n<\/p>\n

\nAnd here I thought those two couldn’t find a way to become MORE arrogant.\n<\/p>\n

\n****
\n
\nas this post is now off the front page, I will publish this update as a separate post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan has been quite adamant that we should not allow the upcoming Waxman-Plame show hearing to turn into yet a further reification of the bogus victim narrative Plame, the Reid Democrats, and professional liar Joseph Wilson have been peddling for the last several years—a narrative they have been trying to bolster by finessing the outcome of the Libby trial not as an example of an appalling procedural conviction but as<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9196393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}