Letters to the Editor
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Contrition
Libby has shown none. What's the basis for leniency?
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Good to see you back Glenn
And none too soon. As always, and insightful and well-written article. It never ceases to amaze me that you can put out so many lengthy analyses on a daily basis. Great job.
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"No underlying crime"
To me, what is most enraging about the conventional beltway pundit wisdom on this is that there was no actual "underlying" crime committed in the first place. Fitzgerald was a runaway prosecutor who just needed to find something, anything, to charge somebody with, since it turned out that nobody had committed any crime in the first place.
This is sort of the converse of the justification for Guantanamo - "terrorists" don't deserve to have lawyers or 4th and 5th amendment protections. Obviously, we don't actually know if they are terrorists, they are simply presumed guilty.
In the Plame case, Fitzgerald decided he couldn't prove a crime because the conspirators lied and obstructed justice, but we must presume that no crime was committed, ergo Libby's lies were inconsequential. In fact it is pretty clear that there was a crime -- Plame was indeed an undercover agent, the administration officials who revealed her employment to reporters must have known that, the leak did harm the national interest, and represented a betrayal of the United States. But they threw up enough smoke that it would be difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt in the face of millions of dollars worth of lawyering.
Regardless of whether the original crime can be proved, the punditocracy ought to be outraged about the betrayal of the national interest. But they find it trivial. It's absolutely baffling.
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Strangely enough
David Broder actually came out in favor of sentences for both Libby and Hilton: http://tinyurl.com/3y8cz8
Of course, after reading Broder's column, it could be argued that Broder had to support Libby's sentence because he has met and spent time with the judge. Keeping to Broder's character, he then has to worship at the feet of this powerful and knowledgeable person. Broder also does parrot the RWNM party line that there is no underlying crime.
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Exactly!
I have no doubt that if Libby had been a democrat there would be a drumbeat of media support for his conviction, from Limbaugh and Bennet claiming how not giving the maximum sentence for lying under oath showing the "moral bankrupcy of democrats and sets a bad example for the children", to so called liberals like Klein joining the feeding frenzy.
The true, evil brilliance of the FAUX news model is that they set the narrative with their talking heads, and then the current crop of cowards in the main stream media go along with the general story line; it is a herd/pack mentality that reminds me much more of Junior High school social cliques than the government watchdog role that the press is supposed to perform.
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Best of the Libby letters... (Not sarcastic!)
From Mr John E Rogers, a former assistant US attorney:
(It's deep in the smokinggun document dump)
"For a high government officer to do what was done in this case, to lie and lie and lie and continuously dissemble in order to a block a criminal investigation of a national security breech is an extremely serious matter, very akin to treason."
[...]
"I urge you to impose a sentence in this case appropriate to the crimes committed by this defendant, taking into consideration his betrayal of his high position and his country, his superior knowledge as a lawyer and former partner in a major law firm as to exactly what he was doing and his continuing unrepentant conduct. Whether he is kind to his dog, a nice guy, a good neighbor, or anything else is, of course, irrelevant to what he did and continues to do."
[emphasis mine]
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The big frat party
I.F. Stone famously declined to socialize with the wielders and brokers of power in Washington whom he covered, as he recognized the perils of becoming too chummy with one's subjects: one would come to develop friendly bonds with them which could compromise one's ability to see them clearly and to report on them honestly and frankly, particularly where such honesty would reflect badly on their character or behavior.
The Beltway today is a big frat party, and many of the journalists see themselves as peers of those they cover; when one knows and likes another, it is difficult to stop oneself from finding reasons to justify or at least mitigate the character flaws or questionable behavior of that person. This is a natural part of human psychology and it is admirable when friends stand behind one another. However, a reporter's responsibility is to report on the activities of the powerful with honesty and with skepticism. A reporter who becomes friends--or who is seduced into thinking he is a "friend"--of the powerful people he covers has already betrayed his primary constituency and his professional responsibility.
Joe Klein is just another whore, like all the rest. (To quote the title of a book by writer and music critic R. Meltzer; Meltzer meant the title to apply to himself.)
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Of course it's all related....
It's unfortunate that Joe Klein present such a tempting target. He has, after all, been shown to be among the most thin skinned and pompous of the various beltway-types who've been engaging in the behavior you're describing. He of copurse is just an exemplar of a much wider and more insideous problem.
It's worth noting that Time magazine seems to be institutionally affected. Within hours of the Libby sentencing they were the first out of the gate with an article decrying the injustice of it all:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1628373,00.html
I'd have to do a little more google-work before I can suggest that there attitude might be tied to their personal involvment in the case.
But then again, journalist's personal involvement with the people they're supposed to be watching is pretty much the whole problem in a nutshell, isn't it?
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on the subject of criminality
I was reading the following in the local paper a couple of days ago, and it gave me hope that even if it doesn't happen in the next 19 months, there's still plenty of time to bring the rest of the Bush crime family--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Gonzales, Bush himself, etc.--to justice. Fujimori left office seven years ago:
Chile judge orders Fujimori arrest
A Chilean supreme court judge has ordered that a former Peruvian president be placed under house arrest amid concerns he may try to flee Chile to avoid extradition to Peru . . .
Peruvian state lawyers have sought Fujimori on charges of corruption and human-rights abuses . . .
Peru accuses Fujimori of embezzling $15m and using excessive anti-terrorism measures during his 1990-2000 presidency . . .
For the full story, see http://english.aljazeera.net/English/, http://www.gulf-times.com/, etc.