Martha Stewart was convicted of lying about a crime she was never charged with.
Now Scooter Libby is in the same boat.
Ain't the legal system fun?
That being said, if he did break the law, he should pay the price. I'm just curious though; who leaked the info about Plame to Bob Novak, and was it a crime? Was she covert or not? Wasn't that what Fitzgerald was supposed to be investigating? Does anyone know who told Bob Novak about Plame? Why didn't he face a subpoena? Why did Judith Miller go to jail to protect her source, but Novak wasn't even questioned? After all, he was the guy who wrote the article that kicked off this whole she-bang.
Is it safe to say that afer two years of investigating this matter, if all he could come up with is 5 indictments for inconsistent testimony, then the investigation is a complete failure?
Heck, even the Whitewater investigation came up with more indictments and convictions than that, and we know how dems viewed that piece of work.
What do y'all think, will dems view the Fitzgerald investigation with the same scorn as they showed Starr investigation since it was even less effective in handing down indictments? And will the reps take this one as seriously as they did the last one, or will they try to minimize it?
Well, since both sides are dominated by partisan hypocrites, I'm betting on the latter in both cases. Dems will howl for Bush's impeachment even though his name isn't on the indictment, and reps will claim that it was nothing but a partisan witch hunt.
The truth is once again lost in partisan political maneuvering.
Here's what I think, for what it's worth:
Based on the information we have, Plame was no longer a covert agent, and her work as an agent was common knowledge in Washington. Therefore, disclosing her name was not a crime. Joseph Wilson lied repeatedly and publicly about who sent him on the mission, and the results of that mission, in an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration. Anti-war folks have seized on a feud between the White House and the CIA to try and bring down the Bush administration.
However, Fitzgerald may have (God, I hope so after two years of looking in to it) more information than we do. The story may be quit different than what we know right now, and if folks in the White House broke the law, they should be punished. If the White House exerted undue influence on the analysis of intelligence data, then that too should be exposed and addressed.
And finally, mos of the press continues to distort the story to serve their own ends. Every story I've read makes the claim that WMDs were either the sole reason or the main reason that we went to war in Iraq. Since a simple google search definitively proves otherwise (Check every speech given by Bush or Cheney during that time period. They always listed multiple reasons for invading, including humanitarian efforts, and spreading democracy in the Middle East.) this myopic view of recent history must be the result of either partisan bias leading to tunnel vision, or an innate inability or unwillingness to communicate complex issues, prefering instead to go with the sound bite.
Posted by Rich at October 28, 2005 1:20 PM | TrackBackso...basically you are saying it is OK to lie as long as you are not under oath... .hmm..
Posted by: on October 30, 2005 3:36 PMBasically, you need to learn how to read. Where did I come even close to saying that?
I specifically said twice that if anybody broke the law, they should be punished appropriately. All I'm asking is why, after 2 years of investigation, not only don't we know who told Bob Novak about Valerie PLame, (you remember him, the only guy who wrote about Plame?) it seems that nobody is even interested in asking him the damn question!
I find that curious.
I'm also pointing out that most of the media is willfully distorting the story to play to their agenda, rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. It's never mentioned, for instance, that the Senate committee that first investigated the charges concluded that Joe Wilson did distort the information in his report when he wrote his article, and that his original report actually supported the claim that Iraq did try to by yellow cake in Africa.
That would seem to be a pertinent piece of information, don't you think?
This isn't the last indictment in this case. That's not how Fitzgerald works. One grand jury has completed their work. There will be another and it will use the body of evidence the first one built.
I, myself, don't know what was common knowledge in Washington before Libby and Rove started calling reporters. Reports I hear about the survey of their neighbors say they had no idea she worked for the CIA.
Larry Johnson and Ambassador Wilson dispute your talking point about Wilson's lies:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/30/18754/437
And the point of this whole affair is that the Bush administration needed something really scary to push support for the war over the top. They, allegedly, manufactured a nuclear threat to get that support. Wilson was publicly questioning their evidence of that threat and _had_ to be stopped. I suggest staying tuned to the story.
Posted by: John on October 30, 2005 7:57 PM