Cheney & Libby: It’s Not Over By a Long Shot
Lost in the tsunami of commentary on the Libby perjury trial verdict is that a second trial looms that could be far more damaging to Vice President Cheney and the Bush administration.
That trial would be on the lawsuit that Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame have filed against Cheney, Libby, Karl Rove and Richard Armitage.
The lawsuit would have proceeded no matter the outcome of the criminal trial. That is because it is not about whether Libby obstructed justice and lied, but whether the high-profile defendants violated the constitutional rights of the former diplomat and his CIA agent wife by conspiring to retaliate against them after Wilson revealed that one of the key rationales used by the administration for going to war in Iraq was phony.
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58 Responses to “Cheney & Libby: It’s Not Over By a Long Shot”
Well said, Rudi!!!
CS,
Which came first, the science or the politics? So far as I can tell it was the science. Then (Depending on the area of the disagreement.) the politicians, the pundits, the religious leaders and their believers come into the fray. The science offends them in one way or another and here comes the politics. But of course one thing that those situations have in common with this thread of discussion is a certain lack of recognizing cause and effect.
Because please note how many times the actions of the Wilsons subsequent to her “outing” are mentioned as though they were concurrent with the campaign to smear Mr. Wilson. Something they did months or even years after the fact become proof of their intent at the time. Wilson’s piece in the New York Times cannot be something he wrote because he was upset about the misrepresentation of what he felt he’d discovered in Niger. No, if it discredits Bush it must be “Bush Derangement Syndrome” because of course Bush did nothing wrong.
Somehow Wilson’s wife recommending him for the trip seems to be equal to her sending him instead of an idea that her superiors at the CIA thought was a good idea because of his previous experience in the area. The list goes on. See how stevesturm claims to not care for Bush but uses nothing but the most vicious attack language towards Wilson. Somehow the two seem to conflict. In addition huge numbers of conservative attackers claim to know for a certainty that Plame was not covert because she had lived in the States for longer than five years. Of course these infallible experts have no idea whether she made shorter trips or not. They do not know what phone calls she might have made overseas in her identity as an energy company consultant. They always conveniently ignore that the organization that served as her cover was used by others and that whatever expense and effort was put into its creation was destroyed by the actions of those who chose to reveal her. As far as it being Armitage who exposed her is concerned am I incorrect in my belief that he was not the sole source for Novak’s column? Wasn’t it also pretty much proven that there were others shopping around that information to multiple journalists? As I said, the list goes on and I’m always amused by those who think that since they are convinced that there was no crime involved in the exposure of Valerie Plame’s job that Libby lying to the Grand Jury was perfectly acceptable but Clinton’s perjury should have resulted in jail time.
Jim,
Put yourself into Wilson’s shoes. You’ve gone on this trip at the behest of the CIA and you don’t know what came of your report. You then find yourself scratching your head at the conclusions that the WH has drawn about the intel. Do you:
A) Go through channels to inquire about what conclusions were drawn from your trip, to find out if any of the information was found to be inaccurate and therefore downgraded?
B) Write a politically loaded OpEd for the NYT accusing the Bush administration of cooking the evidence?
And which course of action would you be most likely to take if you were concerned about protecting your wife’s covert status in the CIA? More publicity through the politically charged route of publicly accusing the president of falsifying evidence, or questioning the people who assigned this mission to you?
The evidence of Wilson’s motivation started there; the events that transpired later only serve to confirm that he was after the publicity and financial reward.
How do those two things conflict? It’s perfectly possible to dislike and distrust the players on both sides.
I don’t disagree that this is what happens, Jim, but the role of the scientists even after the politicization starts should be to ONLY state the evidence that supports one theory or another. They should not try to discredit others who hold to different theories; that is for the public to debate based on hearing the evidence on both sides.
Rudi says:
Rudi, you still haven’t addressed my point: The question here is who knew what and when did they know it. When should the intelligence community have been able to know these things were false? What was being told to the administration? There was some doubt about some of the assertions, but even Tenet said that he didn’t call for the removal of the yellowcake statement on the basis of thinking it to be false, he was only concerned that they didn’t yet have adequate proof. Those are two different levels of concern.
If these scientists are saying that the claims were unbelievable in 2002- early 2003, then who was responsible for believing the unbelievable? How much of that happened because of a CIA that was overly concerned about erring on the side of underestimating Saddam’s capability? Were there really a significant number of people in the CIA who KNEW that these claims could not be true, or is this a case of 20:20 hindsight or perhaps a lack of qualified individuals doing intel work?
Jim: can’t I have contempt for both Bush and Wilson?
stevesturm,
Language and how it’s used is always a good indicator of where one stands. You have never to the best of my knowledge used the kind of vitriol on Bush or his allies that you used on Wilson. This does not seem to indicate contempt for both sides.
CS,
There is a difference between discrediting someone’s science and the person. The public, frankly, doesn’t know nearly enough to do the former. The number of times I’ve read posts where someone admits that they’re not a scientist but they know global warming can’t be right because their weatherman doesn’t get a forecast right pretty much proves that.
I am appalled by this discussion. why do you all have your heads up your rears. the real issue is the sincerity or lack thereof of this administration in regard to the otherwise absolute need for security espoused by them in regard to this war on terror. It is not whether or not a crime was technically committed or the wilsons can or can not win a civil suit or even if they have not been truthfull about everything. If I understand the “defense” offered to the criminal charge it was and is that none of the administration officials knew whether or not she was covert. It is clear that they simply did not bother to ask if this information should be withheld from the press. This conduct was shared by Rove, Libby and Armitage(who was a Bush appointee and a signer of the 1998 letter to Clinton urging invasion of Iraq). this conduct is utterly inconsistent with everything the administration has been saying about the need for secrecy in the war on terror. I cannot see how the collateral information about Wilsons wife was in any sense truly necessary to evaluate the underlying question. If you sincerely believe in the war I respect that. But I really wonder why you would want leadership that is so careless and insincere as to reveal such information without checking on at least whether or not the CIA wished the information withheld before giving it to the press. If you really want to succeed you would want new leadership. If not I reject the notion that you are sincere.