Atrios linked approvingly to a clip of David Shuster interviewing Fouad Ajami about his bizarre op-ed in the WSJ defending Scooter Libby. The op-ed is from early June, but I didn’t comment on it then because, in addition to it’s abject hypocrisy, some were creating an inflated controversy about Ajami’s metaphor of Libby as a fallen soldier. I think the metaphor is weak, but I hate turning every issue into a question of patriotism or “supporting the troops,” a phrase that itself has become a metaphor, codeword, and partisan slogan all wrapped into one. There are legitimate cases of people not supporting soldiers (e.g. the fiasco at Walter Reed, medical care for wounded vets, etc.). This isn’t one of them.

This is, instead, a case of flawed thinking and hypocrisy. He demonstrates his own hypocrisy in the op-ed by making a clearly political case for the pardon of Scooter Libby. There is no legal principle offered, nor is there a case built on logic. Instead, he appeals to Bush’s sense of loyalty, and essentially opines that because the verdict could be interpreted by some as a verdict on the war, and Ajami feels the war is honorable, Bush should pardon him. He is, therefore, doing what he accuses opponents of the war of doing, substituting his opinion of the war for the justice before the law.

That’s the flawed thinking, and I’m quite frankly ashamed that Ajami is a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS (I have an International Studies BA from Hopkins). The op-ed is riddled with poor logic and a fallacious metaphor. For example, Ajami uses the Soldier’s Creed as a way to describe the nobility of Libby’s crime, thus missing the point of the creed. The creed is noble because it represents real sacrifice on the part of soldiers. When soldiers refuse to leave a fallen comrade behind, they are risking their life to help one of their own. The fallen soldier, and all of our fighting men and women, are sacrificing time with their families, the comfort of home, and careers to do their duty.

What is Libby’s sacrifice? For Bush, who would be the one coming back for his fallen comrade, what is his sacrifice? Without that sacrifice, this metaphor is simply absurd.

More importantly, Ajami makes a simple error of logic. The leak, for which Ajami erroneously points at Armitage alone, was one issue, but the acts of perjury and obstruction were their own crimes. They stand on their own, as they did with Clinton. While I would agree that Clinton should’ve never had to answer questions about his personal sex life, the fact that he lied under oath was wrong and criminal.* Ajami glosses over the crime committed and tries to blur Libby’s act and the leak of Plame’s name into one crime. They are not.

So, while I don’t like the Hardball format, or Shuster’s odd (mis?)statement that Ajami should declare he’s using a metaphor in his piece, he was right to challenge Ajami’s editorial. After all, let’s be honest here. Ajami used this particular metaphor and wrote this piece to place Libby in a noble light for the public. It was a cheap emotional trick in a piece empty of specific claim or any evidence for why Libby was wrongly prosecuted.

If he was simply doing his job, he shouldn’t have lied, just as Armitage, Rove, and others had managed to do. It’s really that simple. Tell the truth. Follow the law. There’s nobility in that, and folks like Libby and Mr. Ajami would be good to remember it.

* Yes, I think it was criminal. Did it rise to “high crimes and misdemeanors?” No. Censure, sure, impeachment, no. As I said yesterday, he would’ve probably been given a very light sentence had he been a regular official and not President and actually gone to trial.