(Photo by roens.)

Ever since they were released last Friday, I’ve been meaning to write about the FBI notes of Dick Cheney’s interview with Plamemania special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.  As is her wont, Emptywheel has already critiqued Cheney’s non-answers from a variety of angles, and multiple media reports have commented on the ex-Veep’s nearly all-encompassing amnesia, best summarized by Watergate whistle-blower John Dean (via Raw Story):

Dean told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that Cheney attained “something of a record” by refusing to answer or claiming to not recall the answer to 72 questions posed by the FBI during a May, 2004, interview.

“If you’ll recall, former Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman did 150 ‘I don’t recalls’ during his three days before the Senate Watergate committee,” Dean said. “This is 72 in less than three hours, that’s right up there.“

Among the many things that Big Dick pretended not to remember or to have cared about, what stood out to me were these attempts to portray his chief of staff–the now-convicted felon Scooter Libby–as merely answering media questions in such a mundane way that Cheney was barely aware of them:

Routine press inquiries would have gone to Cathie Martin, while some of those involving more substantive matters, particularly in the area of intelligence and national security, would have likely been handled by Scooter Libby.  He [Cheney] provided press guidance to both of them at times … though he can’t recall any specific advice he gave them in the May/June 2003 time frame….

… Vice President Cheney advised he was aware, prior to the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s identity in Robert Novak’s newspaper editorial on 7/14/03, that Scooter Libby was speaking to reporters about Joseph Wilson and his trip to Niger.  He stated that Libby was not required to clear every public statement and press contact because the Vice President had confidence in Libby’s abilities and experience in handling such inquiries….

… The Vice President advised that it was possible while on the return flight [from Norfolk, VA to Washington, DC on July 12th], that he and Scooter Libby discussed media responses to inquiries regarding Joe Wilson’s charges about the use of flawed intelligence.  Though he cannot recall any specific conversation, he would not be surprised to learn that he had such a discussion with his Chief of Staff.

… Vice President Cheney reiterated that Libby’s 7/12/03 handwritten notes look and sound like something he might dictate to Libby, but he cannot specifically recall having dictated such instructions to him on that occasion….

… The Vice President advised that if Scooter Libby had any discussion with any reporters on 7/12/03 upon his return from Norfolk, VA, he must have viewed those discussions as unremarkable, inasmuch as the Vice President was never told the outcome of any conversations, discussions or interviews with the media by Libby.

Why do I find all of this no-big-deal spin noteworthy?  Because of how Cheney attempts to explain away a seemingly damning piece of evidence–a note written in early October 2003 demanding that the White House spokesliar Scott McClellan publicly (and, as events would reveal, inaccurately) exonerate Libby from involvement in the Plame leak:

The vice president stated that the portion of his handwritten notes which read in part, ‘… sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others’, was his reference to the efforts of Libby who was forced to respond to numerous media inquiries involving Joe Wilson because of the incompetence of the CIA.

Uhh, Dick, what happened to your “confidence in Libby’s abilities and experience in handling such inquiries”?  How did conversations with reporters that were “unremarkable” when they occurred in July suddenly become the equivalent of putting one’s “neck in the meat grinder” three months later?

Kind of makes you think that the real “meat grinder” must have been something else, doesn’t it?

(P.S.  I’ll do my own version of getting into the weeds on what the real “meat grinder” was — and the evidence to support it — sometime over the next few days, probably as Seminal diaries.)

Related posts:

1. Cheney’s Betrayal Made an IIPA Charge for Libby Possible
2. New White House Counsel Bob Bauer and Scooter Libby Justice
3. Cheney Interview: Washington Post Losing Its Ability to Report, Too
4. Cheney Refused to Release the Journalists
5. Dick Cheney Asks Obama to Wave His Magic Wand