Libby: The War Party's Kamikaze

[hang a left]

October 28, 2005
Libby: The War Party's Kamikaze
Why did Scooter lie – and so badly?
by Justin Raimondo

"It's not over."

Out of Fitzgerald's hour-long press conference, these three words had the most resonance. Before we get into that, however, let's look at the man who has come out from behind the screen of this very closely-held investigation.

Fitzgerald's debut at the press conference put on display a character who might have been imagined by a novelist. He seems to embody the principle of justice: the clear concise nature of his speech, his narrow application of his mandate <.pdf>, his adamant refusal to be drawn into politics of any sort. If this is the man the White House thought they were going to characterize as partisan, they had better go back to the drawing board.

Precisely for this reason, however, his words carry an enormous political impact, and the War Party is reeling. They are staggering backwards against this tremendous blow to their credibility, because their methods and complete amorality are exposed in the bare facts laid out in the indictment <.pdf> – and because they know Fitzgerald is not done with them.

The charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby – one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements, and two perjury counts – dramatize, in the stark prose style of a legal document, how the War Party does business. It shows how Libby had the lowdown on Valerie Plame-Wilson's CIA employment from Dick Cheney and State Department officials, how he leaked her name to the media, and then tried to "launder" the leak by making it appear as if he had heard it from reporters. They were out to retaliate against their enemies, and the national security of the United States was completely irrelevant.

I flat out expected Fitzgerald to press charges similar to those used in the AIPAC case, which is similar to the CIA leak case in many ways: both <.pdf> involve the dissemination of classified information to persons not entitled to receive it, and variations of this language are repeated throughout the indictment. Yet in explaining why he didn't proffer charges of violating the Espionage Act – the indictment states the grand jury was empanelled to investigate, in part, the possible violation of Title 18, Section 793 of the U.S. Code – Fitzgerald made a point of explaining why not doing so in this instance doesn't reduce the severity of the crime – or erase the underlying crime. We don't have an Official Secrets Act, he noted, and we need to balance national security and the First Amendment, and in deciding what to charge Libby with, his reasoning went something like this:

snip>

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7825

[Delphinus]

1. This is a great article - hope

it doesn't get missed in everything else.

I love this quote from Patrick Fitzgerald"
"This wasn't done to Valerie Wilson, it was done to all of us."

[SaintLouisBlues]

2. K & R

Another snip:

The "unanticipated shift" in the investigation occurred in mid-July, and is presumably why, as Fitzgerald put it, "it's not over." We may be a lot closer to the beginning than to the end. The prospect of more indictments – and not just of Karl Rove – is alive and well. Fitzgerald's probe into the secretive cabal at the heart of our government continues.

[Stephanie]

3. He's a Suicide Perjurer