“As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald mulls possible charges in the Valerie Plame investigation, the gloating in liberal enclaves like Manhattan, Oberlin, and Arianna’s dining room has swelled to a roar… Hold the schadenfreude, blue-staters. Rooting for [Karl] Rove’s indictment in this case isn’t just unseemly, it’s unthinking and ultimately self-destructive. Anyone who cares about civil liberties, freedom of information, or even just fair play should have been skeptical about Fitzgerald’s investigation from the start. Claiming a few conservative scalps might be satisfying, but they’ll come at a cost to principles liberals hold dear: the press’s right to find out, the government’s ability to disclose, and the public’s right to know” — Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate.com
Update: The Wall Street Journal has more and more.
Update: Christopher Hitchens has more.
Someone called “hal” @ “http://n/a” wanted to talk about Scooter Libby at your Economics Podcasts posting.
I thought that here would be a good place for hally to learn a little bit more than he can from the lib presstitutes. This is a good summary (HT:FR and Clarice), I think:
As Cliff Kincaide correctly notes, Lewis “Scooter” Libby is charged with lying about telling the press their reports(based on Wilson’s fables) were wrong. The Washington Post’s Pincus is still correcting his corrections of the Wilson fable published 2 1/2 years ago, The NYT’s Kristof still hasn’t come clean.
And virtually all of the rest of the journos keep acting as if the SSCI Report (Wilson’s story was a pack of lies), Butler Report (Iraq was most certainly seeking uranium in Africa and that analysis was not based on forged documents but on solid intel) and Silberman/Robb (the Administration did not manipulate the intel) reports didn’t exist.
So here we have it folks: A kerfuffle about a liar whose wife was not a very covert agent and whose “outing” (contrary to The Nation’s Corn’s storyline) caused no damage.
REPEATED GOVERNMENT INQUIRIES PROVE THE WILSON STORY UTTERLY FALSE; THE PRESS KEEPS REPORTING THE STORY AND IGNORING THE EVIDENCE THAT THREE INDEPENDENT BI-PARTISAN INVESTIGATIONS SAID SO; AND SOMEONE GETS INDICTED FOR LYING ABOUT TELLING THE PRESS THEY WERE PRINTING FALSEHOODS.
freedom of the press is sacrosanct , but the so called liberal media , is more conservative than you think , after all they too are paid for by big business.
But as for me I’ll see how this whole thing plays out before I judge .
Sirc_valence-
You obviously did not read the indictment.
“Lewis “Scooter” Libby is charged with lying about telling the press their reports(based on Wilson’s fables) were wrong.”
He was not indicted for tellling the press their reports were wrong. He lied to FBI agents and the grand jury, not reporters first of all. Second he did not get indicted for correcting the reporters. He got indicted for telling law enforcement officials that he did not know Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA (or on once occasion that he even had a wife). Meanwhile their are at least 7 witnesses (including some of them who worked in the Bush Admin, one being the VP) who said that they had conversations with Libby about this topic before he claimed he heard about it. The person he claims he heard about it from says that he never discussed Wilson’s wife with him. This is what he is indicted for.
Also, if the press is so liberal, why were they so complicit with Libby in this smearing. To the extent that a reporter in the liberal “Manhattan” bastion NY Times was willing to change the attribution of her quote to protect Libby nad he let her rot in jail for 85 days in return fore her loyalty. This guy is a sleaze bag.
Fitgerald got this story right regarding protecting sources and the NY Times got it wrong. Protecting a source is ok if he is not a party in the crime. If a govt. worker knows the guy down the hall is commiting a crime and is afraid to lose his job, the source deserves to be protected. However, if the source himself is the one suspected of commiting the crime, then you by not cooperating with the investigation are an accesory.
Sounds something like the Clinton impeachment, don’t it Michael?
Only difference is, the Clinton impeachment didn’t also attack the freedom of the press.
I haven’t read the indictment yet and I likely won’t. Is Libby a sleazebag, is he not? We should see.
If I have the time, which I may not this or next week, I’ll check out that indictment. You should see a reply here if I do. If I have nothing to contribute, then obviously, I won’t post any comment.
I don’t think that you should fight sleaze with sleaze, so if Libby is guilty, and he’ll have his day in court, then don’t expect people to defend him for obstruction of justice as they did with Clinnochio (e.g. “everyone lies..”).
I haven’t read the indictment yet and I likely won’t.
So why are you commenting on it? Try thinking for yourself rather than regeritating some drivel that some right wing hack incorrectly reports.
Again this did not attack the freedom of the press. There is a huge difference between this and your usual whistleblower. The source was not the witness to a potential crime, he was the suspect of a crime. It would be like watching a crime committed and not reporting it.
Also regarding Clinton, the genesis of the Libby case was lying to cover up a potential compromise of national security. Clinton’s was lying to cover up a blow job.
Michael,
I didn’t see an indictment re: a cover up. Nor any indictment Re: outing a secret agent. The way I understand it is that he was indicted for conflicting stories to investigators/GJ. It still has to be proven w/in a reasonable doubt, no?
If you want to spout chisme, that is fine pero for you to claim your chisme is fact is puro pedo. I think what SV is saying is that he will wait to decide (I didn’t take it that SV is a huge fan of Libby’s) after looking at the facts.
Re: lying about a blow job or lying about where you heard your story is silly. Do you honestly think WJC’s lie was OK? Why? You could use a little balance yourself and back of Sv’s jock. Right wing hack? where did you get your info? Since you are most likely not party to the investigation I bet your sources are just as “suspect” as his. He could say the same about you.
I’ll wait and see how this turns out before I decide, if your mind is made up; fine but please admit that it is your opinion based on what limited info you know (just like everyone else).
All of you guys, when you have time, should really read the two links above, along with this one, to get more of a balanced view of what is going on with the Fitzgerald indictment. After all, Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate.com, is a well respected liberal and clearly does not like the Bush administration or the war…
“where did you get your info? Since you are most likely not party to the investigation I bet your sources are just as “suspect” as his. He could say the same about you.”
Again, my source is THE INDICTMENT itself. It is on the internet. No secret to it. There are 7 instances documented in the indictment itself that conflict with Libby’s including former Bush press secretary Ari Fleisher, a note Libby himself wrote about hearing it from VP Cheney himself, A CIA officer working on the WMD issue. 3 conversations with Judith Miller, 1 with Matt Cooper and one with unnamed source A. all claiming that they discussed this topic with Libby all before Libby claims that he heard it from Tim Russert, who claims he never discussed Wilson with him up to this point. Libby’s response when he heard it from Russert was that he did not even know Wilson had a wife.
His stories did not just conflict with his own stories at other occasions, it conflicted with 7 other peoples accounts, including people in his own administration.
Again as Bush likes to say, remove the media filter. Read the indictment for yourself. He is indicted on charges of perjury, making false statments and obstruction of justice. This is pretty much a cover-up attempt by him that worked out pretty well for him. As Fitgerald said in his news conference, his cover-up makes it virtually impossible to prove his motive for releasing the classified information to unauthorized sources, whether intentional or inadvertent, a requirement under the strict statute regarding outing covert agents. As Fitgerald said in his press conference, the obstruction and lies in effect threw sand in the umpires face and it is now virtual impossible to rule on the mishandling of classified info. A strategy that a seasoned attorney like Libbey must have known about in the first place.
Libby is entitled to his day in court no doubt. But the indictment is pretty damning. Don’t forget Clinton was not convicted either, just indicted so by your standards Clinton’s offense was not proven.
Michael,
The indictment makes allegations that need to be proven, there is still a burden of proof beyond a reason of a doubt, no? Isn’t that bar pretty high?. You elude to WJC, case in point . . . no? Prosecution had DNA.
” so by your standards Clinton’s offense was not proven.”
I guess not, He got off, right? From what I understand (I may be wrong because I am no lawyer nor did I follow the investigation) the bar was too high. BTW, if you were miffed about my WJC inquiry, it came from your comment:
” Also regarding Clinton, the genesis of the Libby case was lying to cover up a potential compromise of national security. Clinton’s was lying to cover up a blow job. ”
Get it right Michael.
“Again, my source is THE INDICTMENT itself.”
“As Fitgerald said in his news conference . . .”
Well, which is it? Remember that the indictment was NOT for “outing” a “covert” agent (and your claim above should state “possible” not potential). I am sure that you are influenced by blogs/reports you read and you know what. . . that is OK. But don’t try to pass yourself off as fair, impartial, holier than thou or any of that tripe. SV is entitled to his opinion just as you are entitled to yours.
” the obstruction and lies in effect threw sand in the umpires face and it is now virtual impossible to rule on the mishandling of classified info. A strategy that a seasoned attorney like Libbey must have known about in the first place.”
“But the indictment is pretty damning”
Speculation, no? You’re a hack, so what? No big deal, no surprises.
One last thing, if you are buying into a conspiracy theory (maybe you aren’t but it seems that way) then did you buy into the one that WJC had something to do with Ron Brown’s plane crash? I didn’t, but wonder if maybe you did.
Mmmm, I’ll wait and see what happens before I make up my mind on Libby. . . ‘k?
I am not a hack. I don’t even have website. Nobody listens to me, no direct media. Just an ordinary citizen.
totally not miffed about Clinton reference. i brought iot up.
All of my sources are the grand jury and the prosecutor, no talking head pundit.
Absolutely SV is entitled to his opinion, and Libby is entitled to his day in court. The bar is not all that high. Martha Stewart went to jail on the same charges with a lot less evidence against her.
My problem is that he incorrectly claims that Libby was indicted for telling lies to the press. This is not illegal and it is not what he is indicted for. It is for telliing lies to the grand jury and the FBI. It just bothers me that people go with the old axiom of “never let a little thing the truth interfere with a godd story.” Which is ironic considering this is a case about lies.