cheneyinlove.jpg

Either the jury system and the judicial process matters to the Bush White House and to Republicans, along with that whole, pesky GOP talking point "Do the crime, do the time" – or it doesn't. 

Here is what I know:  sometimes, even seemingly decent people commit crimes.  And when they do, they ought to be punished in the same way that everyone else is — because they have committed crimes.  Perhaps it is the prosecutor in me saying this but, honestly, you commit a crime for which you are convicted, then you are sentenced, and you carry out your sentence and pay the penalty for your criminal conduct.  Period.  End of story.  There is a very simple way to not have to deal with prison:  do not commit a crime. 

Libby made a series of bad choices:  he lied, repeatedly, to the FBI, to the Grand Jury under oath, all to cover up for the Vice President of the United States and for his own poor choices.  For those poor choices of his own making, he was convicted by a unanimous vote of a jury of his peers, and he should pay the penalty for this.  No one, no matter their station in life, no matter their connections or political affiliation — no one — should be allowed to repeatedly and manipulatively lie to a grand jury under oath or to criminal investigators without consequences.  It is wrong, whomever may be doing it, and Libby is no exception to the rule of law.

As for Dick Cheney and the rest of the White House Iraq Group cronies at the White House, up to and including President Bush, who were involved at all levels of pushback on Joe Wilson's questioning of their motives and actions?  They bear responsibility for all of this as well, and it is up to folks in the public sphere to look into this further, including journalists, members of Congress and all of us.

It isn't as though I don't expect substantial hypocrisy from these people on a daily basis, but the immediate calls for a pardon from such self-serving quarters as the WSJ editorial page — which tries the exceedingly unlikely tack of attempting to guilt George Bush into a pardon by calling him on the carpet for not doing his job well – and Bob Novak's self-serving screed of an op-ed (truly two shilling peas in the same, rotting Republican pod) give off the odor of desperation.  Especially on Novak's part this morning — this is hilarious:

George W. Bush lost control of this issue when he permitted a special prosecutor to make decisions that, unlike going after a drug dealer or Mafia kingpin, turned out to be inherently political. It would have taken courage for the president to have aborted this process. It would require even more courage for him to pardon Scooter Libby now, and not while he is walking out of the White House in January 2009.

Apparently, in Bob Novak's world, "courage" is defined as making decisions in a way that is subservient to Novak's gargantuan ego. What are the odds that President Bush will put his own interests aside to serve Novak's? Hmmmmmmm? (Pretty slim, if an interview with Bush on CNN Espanol is to be believed.)  Sorry Bob, looks like you'll have to seek your reputation rehab from another source — Rove has other plans.

Speaking of Rove and plans, Sidney Blumenthal follows up on yesterday's revelation of some press folks begging for scraps from Rove's table with this inside tale of palace intrigue.

In a note entered as a trial exhibit, Cheney expressed his concern that his chief of staff was being thrown to the wolves while Rove was being protected. "Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder," the note read. Despite the dramatic opening, Libby's defense made no reference to the note during the trial. In yet another mysterious lapse, although Libby's lawyers repeatedly gave every indication to Judge Reggie Walton that both Libby and Cheney would testify, neither did. In a perjury trial, if the defendant does not look the jury in the eye and say he did not lie or that he made an honest error, it's difficult to win. But Libby never appeared as a witness on his own behalf; Cheney was not called; and the defense rested on the thin reed of Libby's weak memory and the supposed impeached credibility of journalists. The feeble defense amounted to a verdict foretold….

Just as Fitzgerald was about to indict Rove for perjury and obstruction of justice, Rove got a lucky break. A reporter for Time magazine, Viveca Novak, a colleague of Cooper's and privy to his conversation with Rove, became consumed with an overwhelming desire to be an important inside dopester, and she rushed to inform Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, about Cooper's information. Suddenly, Rove produced an e-mail from Cooper that he had not produced to the prosecutor for a year, refreshed his memory, altered his testimony, and was off the hook. (Novak did not tell her editors or Cooper of her freelancing, and she was forced to resign, in effect sacrificing her career to save Rove by the skin of his teeth.) Libby was left to take the fall alone….

What bearing might this have on Libby's weak defense? Why didn't Libby and Cheney testify? Observing the trial as it developed, Cheney may have decided Libby would lose and that his becoming a witness was beside the point. Ultimately, did Cheney's self-protective calculation trump loyalty to his loyalist?

Did something change in the defense after its opening statement about Rove (Libby "will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected") that led to its refusal to follow up during the trial? Did the prosecutor have new information that has not yet been made public about Libby and Cheney? If so, that evidence would have been irrelevant to the precise charges against Libby but might have come into play if Libby and Cheney testified. Their appearances might have made them vulnerable to additional perjury and obstruction charges if they were found to have lied on the stand. But who might have proved that?

The missing piece in the extensive evidence and testimony that detailed the administration's concerted attack on Wilson, orchestrated by Cheney, is the conversations among Libby, Cheney — and Rove. Rove had made a deal with Fitzgerald. Rove changed his testimony, escaped prosecution and went back for a fifth time before the grand jury. Fitzgerald owned Rove.

Only if Libby and Cheney appeared could Fitzgerald cross-examine them about their discussions with Rove, which presumably Rove had already testified about before the grand jury. Rove was the hostile witness against Cheney whom the prosecution had waiting in the wings, the witness who was never called. If Libby had come to the stand in his own defense, and summoned Cheney as well, Fitzgerald might have been prompted to call Rove from the deep to impeach Libby's and Cheney's credibility and reveal new incriminating information about them. Instead, Libby remained silent, Cheney flew off to Afghanistan and Rove never appeared. Rove was the missing witness for the prosecution.

According to Sidney, Rove and Bush have been going about their regular business this week — hosting the regular book club, hanging out for dinner together — all the while Dick Cheney has been jetting around the globe, while his former trusted aide was sitting in the Prettyman courthouse awaiting the verdict of a jury of his peers.  And if the plan was, indeed, to hold Rove in reserve as an impeachment witness for Vice President Cheney and Libby, what, do you think, are the actual odds on a pardon? 

Who holds more sway with George Bush — Rove or Cheney? 

Think about that for a moment.  Is that the balance on which you want to hang your family's future, if you are Libby?  If it is Rove, there will be no pardon.  He regards the people who fail in their tawdry political missions in the same disdain as the people against whom such smear invectives are launched.  And after the offensive lobbed against Rove in the opening statements of the Libby trial, the President's choice for verdict week dining was with Rove?  Message sent.

Suddenly, the desperation with which the "pardon me" troops have been dispatched is much more clear, isn't it? 

Victoria Toensing's disastrous round robin appearances on verdict day were stunning in their chattery, substanceless, shrill tap dancing — she was nervous, she was easily thrown off by any questions being asked of her by interviewers who were no longer buying her false legal spin and, more than telling, she was unprepared for the sudden media barrage because her haircolor had to be seen to be believed (Not to be catty, but honestly no one, and I mean no one, goes on camera that unprepared unless they are desperately hustled out into the limelight at the last minute — and given then fact that we had all been sitting around waiting for a verdict for days and days?  The lack of planning was stunning.  It smacked of desperate last-minute shoving in front of a camera.).  The same goes for Rush Limbaugh's unfortunate choice of bear metaphors in discussing the Libby verdict — the allusion to cages and sticks cannot be far behind, now can it?

Why the desperation?  I'd ask Mary Matalin and Barbara Comstock, who have long been the shrill twin harpies of Dick Cheney's PR machine in this matter.  Sounds to me like Dick and Lynne are none too happy with the legacy of corrupted stench and vindictiveness that the Libby trial has deposited squarely on the Vice President's doormat. 

And I've started to wonder if that won't translate into some pushback against Rove and others in the Bush White House.  And whether the Libbys have begun to fully comprehend the fact that Cheney is, first and foremost, going to protect his own reputation — even if that protection comes at the expense of Libby's own interests.  Because for Cheney to pushback on Rove or Bush is not going to make either egomaniac happy, and that isn't exactly the best of recipes for begging for a pardon for a former subordinate who has been protecting you, now is it?

Emptywheel and I were talking this morning, and she has a theory on where Novak's allegiance may now lie.  It's intriguing, and she'll have more up on it at Next Hurrah soon, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up to look for it.

Finally, I wanted to call this Colbert Report piece to everyone's attention because it cracked me up this morning.

Related posts:

  1. The Bush Fairy Tale on the Libby Pardon
  2. The Taxpayers Paid Dick Cheney’s Personal Defense Attorney to Obstruct Any Inquiries Into His Crimes
  3. Cheney Refused to Release the Journalists
  4. Cheney’s Lawyer Already Leaked the Content of Cheney’s “Privileged” Interview
  5. The Fitzgerald-Cheney Interview: What Don’t We Know That We Don’t Know?