From David Broder’s column today:
Now, many conservatives are up in arms about Walton “throwing the book” at Libby.
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Their bigger complaint is that the White House official’s conviction on felony counts of lying and obstruction of justice was a byproduct of a “leak” investigation that itself was unnecessary.
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Despite the absence of any underlying crime, Fitzgerald filed charges against Libby for denying to the FBI and the grand jury that he had discussed the Wilson case with reporters. Libby was convicted on the testimony of reporters from NBC, the New York Times and Time magazine — a further provocation to conservatives.
I think they have a point. This whole controversy is a sideshow — engineered partly by the publicity-seeking former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife and heightened by the hunger in parts of Washington to “get” Rove for something or other.
I have two words for Broder and conservatives who are complaining about the unfairness of what happened to poor Scooter Libby:
Bill Clinton
I have two more words, F*** Y** to these people who would pardon their friend only because he’s their friend but wouldn’t go to bat for anyone else. As for David Broder, this is the same guy who, when Bill Clinton was getting excoriated for perjury about a blow job in an investigation stemming from a supposed crooked land deal (for which no evidence was found), called Clinton’s selfishness “staggering.” All because he felt that a personal affair wasn’t something Congress has any business prosecuting.
Take a look at this 1998 editorial from Virginia Postrel in Reason Magazine:
The public is right about this much: Bill Clinton the man has indeed become embroiled in a scary and fundamentally unjust process. It is wrong to let prosecutors loose to pursue individuals, rather than crimes, until they find something that sticks. It is also wrong, except in extreme cases, to force people to testify about the intimate details of their private lives. Both practices severely erode the protections citizens expect to enjoy in a free society.
But Washington is also right. Clinton is not just a man. He is president of the United States. As I’ve noted in an earlier editorial, Clinton the president actively supported the very laws and procedures from which he now demands exemption. (See “License to Grill,” April.) In all his appeals for sympathy, the man who cruised into office hailing “the year of the woman” and condemning Clarence Thomas has never suggested that what has happened to him should never happen to another American. He has not even suggested that we dump the independent counsel law. His defense has been completely self-centered; his selfishness is, as Broder notes, “staggering.”
It’s amazing people can write these things then turn around a mere few years later and say, well, Scooter Libby is a good man, he was prosecuted wrongly, and should be let go. With Bill Clinton, Washington was “right” to go after him, but with Scooter Libby, also a public official with an oath and a duty to do what’s right for the public, hey, he made a mistake but he’s a good guy.
So, let’s set this straight. Scooter Libby originally committed acts he was asked to testify about that were part of an effort to discredit Joseph Wilson, former Ambassador who was sent to Niger to determine whether Saddam Hussein was buying uranium from the African nation. Because the White House didn’t like the conclusion Wilson came to, they attempted to discredit Wilson by claiming his wife, a covert CIA agent, chose Wilson through nepotism and not because he was qualified, implying that perhaps CIA had an agenda they were pushing.
Libby lied about that. He lied about attempting to discredit someone who would’ve slowed down our march into war. I consider that serious, in fact, and almost by definition a political act. He abused his power, including the knowledge he had of Plame’s covert status and employment, to use that as a political tool. Not only did he do this, but he was dumb enough then to lie about it. Unlike Bill Clinton’s error, there is no understandable reason why he would lie about it. As Kevin Drum wrote:
Take Bill Clinton. He lied too when he denied having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, but in his case everyone knew exactly why he had lied: because he didn’t want anyone to know he was getting blowjobs in the Oval Office. And most of us took that into account. First, because it plainly had nothing to do with the official exercise of executive power, and second, because pretty much everyone figured they might very well have done exactly the same thing in his position. It was understandable human weakness. So while we might not have approved, most of the public decided it wasn’t a hanging offense.
But Libby is a different case entirely. The conservative community wants us to believe that Valerie Plame wasn’t really undercover at all. They also want us to believe that outing her was, in fact, part of an entirely legitimate effort to explain that Dick Cheney hadn’t been responsible for sending Joe Wilson to Niger. And finally, they want us to believe that none of this was part of a coordinated plan. Plame’s name was merely mentioned in an offhand way here and there when reporters brought up questions about Wilson’s trip.
But if that’s the case, then why did Libby lie? Deliberately and repeatedly? Richard Armitage fessed up almost immediately. Ari Fleischer fessed up. Karl Rove had to be pushed, but eventually he fessed up too. Only Libby lied.
Why? If nobody actually did anything wrong, what was he hiding?
I don’t understand either, and I wish his defenders would take a moment to explain the difference between the two cases. Ultimately, there isn’t any and by my measure, what Libby did is worse and, quite frankly, inexplicable. We will probably never know the extent to which there was a coordinated effort to smear Wilson, and we will never know what actually transpired, since most of it is sealed with the grand jury.
Or, as Virginia Postrel wrote, they could argue to change the law. They’re not doing that, though, so clearly Libby must be guilty. That’s a clever argument to impugn anyone you disagree with. She’s smart, that Postrel lady.
