The Libby Trial: A Farce and An Outrage

[red states rule]

"Collective Nervous Breakdown" on Meet the Press
Posted by Lance Dutson on February 12, 2007 - 22:02.
The trial of Scooter Libby is providing some pretty revealing insight into the mindset of the Washington press. This Sunday's Meet the Press featured an unabashed series of self-glorifications that make it no wonder the general public is turning elsewhere to get its news. The pedestal that the press places itself upon has grown so high now that they appear to believe themselves, at last, above the law.
Tim Russert’s disastrous dance with Libby attorney Theodore Wells last week left him gun-shy enough to allow Howard Kurtz to frame the discussion. Kurtz began by expressing sympathy for Russert’s position on the witness stand, describing Russert as ‘cautious, hesitant, as anybody would be.’ There was no criticism of Russert’s failed memory, no suggestion of the responsibility of a journalist whose statements may end up sending a man to prison. Instead, Kurtz chastised those outside the beltway that have become deluded with the idea that the Washington press is in fact part of the political game:


"And I think that the people out there who don’t follow this all that closely think that we have become part of the club, too much the insiders. And that is a problem for journalism."
Listen closely to what Kurtz doesn’t say- he doesn’t say that becoming ‘part of the club’ is a problem for journalism. He says that the misconception on the part of those out of the loop that journalists have become part of the club is a problem for journalism. So apparently all they have to do is let us all know the truth, and the problem disappears. Precise work from the author of a book called Spin Cycle.
Later, the talking stick is passed to David Broder. Broder is deeply concerned with the fact that government officials have started using the poor unknowing saints of the press to carry out their dirty work. Again no self-reflection, no call for journalists to be responsible for their actions. Just another pained attempt to deflect attention from the spectacle of media self-immolation that has begun with this trial.
The coups-de-grace comes from PBS’s Gwen Ifill. Ifill describes the ‘collective nervous breakdown’ of the press over the Libby trial, and how concerned journalists are that they may one day be subjected to scrutiny in a court of law. She tells of journalists who are beginning to destroy their notes in order to prevent their exposure in future legal proceedings, as if this is an indicator of how oppressed the poor media has become by the evil judicial system in America. Ifill does not consider the near-lawlessness of her statements, as what she is describing amounts to the destruction of evidence for future cases, evidence that may determine whether or not someone rots in jail for a crime those notes may have exonerated them from. Her cavalier attitude toward the civic responsibility of journalists seems the height of audacity, until she concludes with this:

"And I don’t know what kind of implication that has for the business, what kind of implication that even has, not to make it too big a point, but for the history books."
The troubling absurdity of this dialog is tempered, fortunately, by what is starting to look like come-uppance on a grand scale. As a New York Times reporter said to me toward the end of Russert’s testimony last Thursday, “This is not good for journalists.”

http://newsbusters.org/node/10787

 

[menton1]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Insight to the partisan hack you are...........

......Bring something to the table other than your partisan fantasies.

Yes, it's a darn good thing that we have folks like you that are TOTALLY non-partisan and 100% objective!

Here's the basic MO: Right wingers never deal with the facts, they just point out "partisanship" or "bias"
Liberals and Progressives never point out partisanship, they just rebut the argument with factual information.

 

[red states rule]

Yes, it's a darn good thing that we have folks like you that are TOTALLY non-partisan and 100% objective!

Here's the basic MO: Right wingers never deal with the facts, they just point out "partisanship" or "bias"
Liberals and Progressives never point out partisanship, they just rebut the argument with factual information.

When did libs start to do that?

Rule 9 of liberal debate tactics : Make up 'facts' most people don't check them and anyway, you'll be long gone by the time the truth is known, and so will the audience.

 

[insein]

Yes, it's a darn good thing that we have folks like you that are TOTALLY non-partisan and 100% objective!

Here's the basic MO: Right wingers never deal with the facts, they just point out "partisanship" or "bias"
Liberals and Progressives never point out partisanship, they just rebut the argument with factual information.

Ha. Please notify me when you provide any facts. So far you've called Bush, Cheney, Libby and the administration traitors without giving any facts to back it up. You've provided alot of your own opinion mixed with lies. But that my friend doesnt count as facts. Since you seem to be hell bent on Bush and Cheney being traitors without any facts to support your claim, you are the definition of partisan.

Armitage mentioned Plame's name to the press. Yet he is not on trial. Libby didnt do anything, he will goto jail for perjury for saying he didnt do anything wrong slightly different the 100th time out of 100. Stop me when any of these FACTS resonate in your brain.

 

[red states rule]

Ha. Please notify me when you provide any facts. Armitage mentioned Plame's name to the press. Yet he is not on trial. Libby didnt do anything, he will goto jail for perjury for saying he didnt do anything wrong slightly different the 100th time out of 100. Stop me when any of these FACTS resonate in your brain.

and Armitage and Powell let this crap drag on for nearly a year

Libby will walk and libs will have to have a rabies shot to cure the foaming at the mouth they will experience

 

[maineman]

Libby didnt do anything, he will goto jail for perjury for saying he didnt do anything wrong slightly different the 100th time out of 100. Stop me when any of these FACTS resonate in your brain.

do you have some link that would substantiate your use of "100th time out of 100", or is that just "rhetorical poetic license"? Because if it is, I hardly think that such license constitutes FACT. Do you?

 

[insein]

and Armitage and Powell let this crap drag on for nearly a year

Libby will walk and libs will have to have a rabies shot to cure the foaming at the mouth they will experience

I don't think Libby will walk is the problem. He's being tried and convicted on trumped up charges by a special prosecutor who's sole purpose was to "find something" on this case. Well his "something" should have been to find out was their a leak of an undercover agent. Instead the "something" he was supposed to find was anything that can nail the Bush Admin. How else can you explain his curious actions during this whole process.

 

[maineman]

I don't think Libby will walk is the problem. He's being tried and convicted on trumped up charges by a special prosecutor who's sole purpose was to "find something" on this case. Well his "something" should have been to find out was their a leak of an undercover agent. Instead the "something" he was supposed to find was anything that can nail the Bush Admin. How else can you explain his curious actions during this whole process.

how does a special prosecutor named by a bunch of republican judges have nailing Bush as part of his marching orders?

 

[insein]

do you have some link that would substantiate your use of "100th time out of 100", or is that just "rhetorical poetic license"? Because if it is, I hardly think that such license constitutes FACT. Do you?

Richard Armitage admits that special Prosecuter Fitzgerald told him to keep quiet
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701781.html

Armitage said yesterday that he did not disclose his role before now because Fitzgerald had asked him not to. But word of his role eventually began to circulate, and on Tuesday, Armitage said, he asked Fitzgerald to be freed of that promise. Fitzgerald agreed.

Yet he wasn't charged with being the leak and Libby is charged with lying. Sounds alittle suspicious to me.

Anyway, onto "what Libby did."

Libby stated that he first heard about Plame from Russert. After many months of asserting that (100 times is merely a random number i gave to emphasize that he was asked repeatedly over many months), documents showed that Cheney had given Libby a memo showing Plame as a CIA operative in passing. Plame was not the main crux of the memo. She was merely mentioned. Libby said he didnt recall that memo and didnt remember Plame being a CIA operative from it. Understandable. So instead of hearing it from Russert, he was supposed to remember it from a random memo given to him many years earlier, before Joe wilson ever gave a false report about Africa.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/01/libbys_defense_goes_after_anti.html

So because of a memo that was given to him amongst all his other memos that he has received over the years that mentioned Plame's name in passing, he now is assumed to have full knowledge of who Valerie Plame was well before he heard it from Russert years later. Thus he is being tried for perjury and obstruction of justice. He didn't leak her name. He didn't out any CIA operative. Yet he's being charged on a technicality because the Special Prosecutor has got NOTHING else.

 

[insein]

how does a special prosecutor named by a bunch of republican judges have nailing Bush as part of his marching orders?

I don't know his motives. They are suspect though.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=241744137262638

But it's hard to see anything but politics as the motivation for Fitzgerald's handling of the Plame affair. The facts indicate that Fitzgerald knew early on that the original leaker was State Department official Richard Armitage. So why did Fitzgerald let a cloud hang over White House adviser Karl Rove's head for so long? And why is Fitzgerald continuing to hound Libby, the former vice presidential chief of staff?

The answer seems to be that Armitage, who is charged with nothing and brags that he hasn't even consulted a lawyer, was former Secretary of State Colin Powell's right-hand man and a critic of pre-emptive war in Iraq. Libby, on the other hand, was an architect of that war strategy. Do doves get a pass in Fitzgerald's book, while hawks get an indictment?

 

[maineman]

do you have some link that would substantiate your use of "100th time out of 100", or is that just "rhetorical poetic license"? Because if it is, I hardly think that such license constitutes FACT. Do you?

ummm...your answer does not address the question

 

[insein]

ummm...your answer does not address the question

I did answer your question. MY use of the 100 out of 100 was rhetorical. The fact is that libby gave a testimonial for many months on end. Each time he said the same thing. Tim Russert was where he first heard of Plame. Then a memo surfaced that mentions Plame's name in passing many years earlier. When asked about the memo, Libby says he doesnt remember it. This memo is being used to charge that Libby knew who Plame was many years before he heard from Russert. Thus he is being charged with perjury and obstruction.

So while my "poetic license" as you say is not literally true, it is true on the point of emphasis.

 

[maineman]

I did answer your question. MY use of the 100 out of 100 was rhetorical. The fact is that libby gave a testimonial for many months on end. Each time he said the same thing. Tim Russert was where he first heard of Plame. Then a memo surfaced that mentions Plame's name in passing many years earlier. When asked about the memo, Libby says he doesnt remember it. This memo is being used to charge that Libby knew who Plame was many years before he heard from Russert. Thus he is being charged with perjury and obstruction.

So while my "poetic license" as you say is not literally true, it is true on the point of emphasis.

if I've told you once, I've told you a billion times, don't exaggerate!

 

[menton1]

MY use of the 100 out of 100 was rhetorical.

Yes, rhetorical, just like Tony "Snowjob".

Incidentally, so it's OK with you that these people LIED your great country into Iraq? That they started with a reason and then looked everywhere to try to justify it? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

 

[insein]

Yes, rhetorical, just like Tony "Snowjob".

Incidentally, so it's OK with you that these people LIED your great country into Iraq? That they started with a reason and then looked everywhere to try to justify it? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

What lie? Elaborate. When did they lie about the reasons to goto war with IRaq and what specifically were those lies?

 

[Annie]

if I've told you once, I've told you a billion times, don't exaggerate!

I'll try not too.

Here's something from that arch-conservative, Howard Kurtz's blog:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

The latest from the Libby trial:

"Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr. opened their case today with a parade of prominent Washington reporters who testified that Mr. Libby never mentioned the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative when they interviewed him during the period the officer's identity was leaked to the press," the New York Times reports.

"One by one, the reporters from The Washington Post, The New York Times and Newsweek took the stand and recounted their conversations with Mr. Libby in the summer of 2003 about the issue of unconventional weapons and Iraq. They briskly and unhesitatingly said Mr. Libby, then the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, did not speak about the C.I.A. employee, Valerie Wilson.

"The jury also heard from Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist who first disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity to the public on July 14, 2003, and set off the investigation that resulted in the five felony charges for which Mr. Libby is being tried. Mr. Novak told the jury that he learned about Ms. Wilson from Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, and had her identity confirmed by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser. But as to whether Ms. Wilson came up in his conversation with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, he said: 'I got no help from Mr. Libby on that issue.' "

Also on the stand: Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus, Glenn Kessler, David Sanger and Evan Thomas. "It was unclear if or how the cumulative impact of those reporters saying Mr. Libby had not discussed Ms. Wilson with them would lead jurors to discount the testimony of the two reporters who said earlier that he had, in fact, discussed her with them."

That pffft you hear is the sound of the air going out of the Scooter Libby trial, at least for Nora Ephron:

"The Libby case was the real deal. The Libby case had legs. The Libby case was about WMD. The Libby case was going to be the truth about this White House -- about its obsession with spin, its gift for pulling focus, its pathological use of lies as a means to war. What's more, if we could just find out who was responsible for the orchestration of the leak of Valerie Plame's name, it seemed clear that it might turn out to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of the Bush Presidency, a mystery that lingers even now: Who is President? Who is running this country? Truly we have no idea . . .

"In the months when the case became a prosecutorial fishing expedition, we all had some hope that in the end Karl Rove would end up on the hook. (This seemed especially important at the time, may I remind you, because we believed that if we didn't get rid of Karl Rove before November 2006, the Republicans would once again win a rigged election. Hmmmm.) For a minute there, we even dared to dream of bringing down the big Kahuna, Dick Cheney. But the smoking gun never really materialized, and the trail instead led to Dick Armitage. The wrong Dick.

"So now, almost two years later, we are stuck with a perjury case against Libby that never broke out of the Beltway; what's worse, it's ended up seeming to be mostly about journalism and journalists -- a subject that is more boring to the country than tertiary sewage treatment plants."

So much for the notion that Russert et al. are big stars.

 

[maineman]

What lie? Elaborate. When did they lie about the reasons to goto war with IRaq and what specifically were those lies?

it is intentionally misleading (lying) to claim certainty and a total absence of doubt concerning Saddam's stockpiles of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when there was NO such certainty or total absence of doubt coming from the intelligence community.

In fact, nearly all of the intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was either old, or single sourced or of dubious quality.... all of those factors - in spook lingo - lessen the certainty of the intelligence itself.

Since the intelligence itself did not support assertions of certainty and the total absence of doubt, those statements were misleading. Clearly, all the players who made those statements were aware of the caveats and qualifiers that attended the intelligence that they were relying upon, therefore that misleading was INTENTIONAL.

Intentional misleading is another way of saying LYING....

look it up.

 

[insein]

it is intentionally misleading (lying) to claim certainty and a total absence of doubt concerning Saddam's stockpiles of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when there was NO such certainty or total absence of doubt coming from the intelligence community.

In fact, nearly all of the intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was either old, or single sourced or of dubious quality.... all of those factors - in spook lingo - lessen the certainty of the intelligence itself.

Since the intelligence itself did not support assertions of certainty and the total absence of doubt, those statements were misleading. Clearly, all the players who made those statements were aware of the caveats and qualifiers that attended the intelligence that they were relying upon, therefore that misleading was INTENTIONAL.

Intentional misleading is another way of saying LYING....

look it up.

How do you determine that it was intentionally misleading?

Here was the situation. Saddam had ties with known terror groups directly and with al queda loosely (meetings to discuss placement of terror camps within Iraqi borders). Saddam had a stockpile of weapons that the UN had stamped and declared there during the first gulf war. Saddam was reported to be trying to gain nuclear capabilities. Saddam was a sworn enemy of the US.

So in 2002, when America is less than a year from being attacked on 9/11 by Al Queda members, Bush was presented this intelligence. Now he had the decision to make. In the post 9/11 world, any nation that harbored terrorists and specifically had dealings with Al queda members had to be dealt with. Does he attempt to continue negotiations with Saddam to disarm or does he threaten the use of force to make him disarm?

As it turned out he attempted negotiations one last time. He went to the UN to demand that they enforce the sanctions on Iraq that had been in place for at that time 12 years. When Saddam refused, war was inevitable. Bush couldnt take the chance that the intelligence was incomplete. He had the sources from the CIA, Europe, the UN, Russia, all saying the same things. That he had weapons and he had ties with terrorist organizations. So had Bush not acted with this knowledge looking him in the face, it would have been dangerous to national security. He did the exact right thing at the time based on the intelligence he was given.

Now the operation of the war itself has been shoddy at best. Not going in full force and eliminating the enemy to the last man was a mistake. OVerwhelming force is the only way to win a war. Instead they tried to fight it with kid gloves and show the world that we are kinder and gentler while attacking a country. War is not a kids game. You can't do it kindly. You go in, destroy everything vital to the enemy and then once the enemy is thouroughly destroyed, you work on the cleanup. There was too much politics involved trying to make us not be seen as big mean Americans. Ironically it turns out that we are seen as big mean Americans AND we have a mismanaged war.

So to sum up, Bush did not intentionally mislead. That is an opinion by some and is no more provable then you can prove someone's thoughts on the weather. Bush made the decision he had to make based on the intelligence he was presented, the timeframe and the enemy he faced. I don't know how i would have handled it myself and i certainly am glad i wasnt the one having to make the decision.

 

[Little-Acorn]

 

[maineman]

How do you determine that it was intentionally misleading?

Here was the situation. Saddam had ties with known terror groups directly and with al queda loosely (meetings to discuss placement of terror camps within Iraqi borders). Saddam had a stockpile of weapons that the UN had stamped and declared there during the first gulf war. Saddam was reported to be trying to gain nuclear capabilities. Saddam was a sworn enemy of the US.

So in 2002, when America is less than a year from being attacked on 9/11 by Al Queda members, Bush was presented this intelligence. Now he had the decision to make. In the post 9/11 world, any nation that harbored terrorists and specifically had dealings with Al queda members had to be dealt with. Does he attempt to continue negotiations with Saddam to disarm or does he threaten the use of force to make him disarm?

As it turned out he attempted negotiations one last time. He went to the UN to demand that they enforce the sanctions on Iraq that had been in place for at that time 12 years. When Saddam refused, war was inevitable. Bush couldnt take the chance that the intelligence was incomplete. He had the sources from the CIA, Europe, the UN, Russia, all saying the same things. That he had weapons and he had ties with terrorist organizations. So had Bush not acted with this knowledge looking him in the face, it would have been dangerous to national security. He did the exact right thing at the time based on the intelligence he was given.

Now the operation of the war itself has been shoddy at best. Not going in full force and eliminating the enemy to the last man was a mistake. OVerwhelming force is the only way to win a war. Instead they tried to fight it with kid gloves and show the world that we are kinder and gentler while attacking a country. War is not a kids game. You can't do it kindly. You go in, destroy everything vital to the enemy and then once the enemy is thouroughly destroyed, you work on the cleanup. There was too much politics involved trying to make us not be seen as big mean Americans. Ironically it turns out that we are seen as big mean Americans AND we have a mismanaged war.

So to sum up, Bush did not intentionally mislead. That is an opinion by some and is no more provable then you can prove someone's thoughts on the weather. Bush made the decision he had to make based on the intelligence he was presented, the timeframe and the enemy he faced. I don't know how i would have handled it myself and i certainly am glad i wasnt the one having to make the decision.

nice biased opinions. Oddly enough, I don't happen to share them.

and don't tell me about war, sweetheart.