Anyone who's lived in the tropics, gotten up in the middle of the night and turned the light ON in the kitchen knows what can happen next-- cockroaches the size of volkswagons skitter in panic across the cabinets and counter, while the bolder ones take flight in kamikaze missions aimed at the head of the person whose hand is on the switch. (The Wilsons, at least, should be able to appreciate that part of the metaphor.)

Another thing: how do people like Cohen and Klein earn the title liberal? Is there some kind of Beltway casting agency that assigns political labels in order to maintain the illusion that things are fair and balanced in the paved-over swamplands of D.C.?

What is it exactly that is supposed to make these fawning courtiers "liberals", anyway? That they seem so in contrast to the knuckle dragging nationalists and chickenhawk neocons of Faux News, The Weekly Standard and the Right Wing Blogsofear?

Call it the Humpty Dumpty Syndrome:

When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean-- neither more nor less."

The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- that's all."

Mr. Cohen's rhetoric, perhaps? The price is hidden, but it will be high, and he won't have to pay it; we will.

but now I have to figure out what "expensive rhetoric" might mean.

-- El Cid,

It might mean lying with rhetoric to the FBI and to a Grand Jury. That cost a lot in the end...hopefully.

I think this is Tim W. Brown's other sockpuppet.

Swopa of the blog Needlenose had a very useful set of bullet points on Libby a few days ago which I copy here:

http://www.needlenose.com/index.php

Bogus Spin #1: Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went after Libby even after learning that Richard Armitage had been Bob Novak's "primary source" for his column outing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee.

Wrong. Armitage made his admission in early October 2003, nearly three months before Fitzgerald was appointed. So it should be clear that Fitzgerald wasn't appointed just to find out who leaked to Novak. In fact, this means that -- even with Armitage's confession in hand -- there was so much evidence of wrongdoing that a longtime GOP loyalist like John Ashcroft felt he had no choice but to recuse himself and allow the appointment of a special counsel.

Bogus Spin #2: Even so, Libby wasn't the only one who leaked about Plame.

Maybe not, but it turns out that every other Bush administration who leaked did so as a result of information they got as a result of Libby's actions. Ari Fleischer testified during Scooter's trial that Libby told him over lunch about Plame working for the CIA, and Karl Rove reportedly told a similar story to the grand jury that indicted Libby. Meanwhile, Armitage and Bushite press flack Dan Bartlett both found out through a State Department memo that was produced in response to questions that Libby had asked a top department official about Wilson's trip to Niger. If Libby (and his boss, Dick Cheney) had been content to reply to Wilson's criticisms on their merits rather than by rattling cages in search of fodder for personal attacks, none of the other officials would ever have been able to leak about Plame.

Bogus Spin #3: The trial was just Libby's word against that of a bunch of reporters.

Although three reporters did testify, they were preceded on the stand by six different government officials who each testified to having conversations with Libby about Joe Wilson's wife before the date when Libby first claimed to have heard it from a reporter. It was these officials' testimony, more than that of the reporters, that convicted Libby.

Bogus Spin #4: Libby was convicted for having a faulty memory.

It's never mentioned in the mainstream media, but Scooter didn't just "forget" telling reporters about Joe Wilson's wife working for the CIA, and deny it when he really had told them.

No, Libby's "faulty memory" caused him not only to deny where he had learned about Plame -- a note produced in the trial showed Vice President Cheney had told him she worked in the Counterproliferation Department of the CIA (where the majority of employees are covert) -- but to invent stories saying he HAD leaked to reporters when he hadn't. He claimed to have been the first to tell Matt Cooper about Wilson's wife, thereby covering up the fact that Karl Rove had done so. And he shielded Fleischer by falsely claiming to have told the Post's Glenn Kessler as well, apparently trying to cover for the Post's October 12, 2003 report that a journalist for the Post (who turned out to be Walter Pincus) had been leaked to -- a news story that was found, with key passages underlined, in Libby's files.

Thus Libby was convicted not just of perjury but of intentionally lying in order to obstruct the investigation, and rightly so.

To: Glenn Greenwald, Esq.

From: Ace of Spades

Dear Sir,

I shall now hold forth in a reasoned disquisition upon the merits of your arguments regarding Mssrs. Libby and Cohen, and the media/blog contre-temps concerning them which is addressed in your recent work upon the subject.

Weighing the various strands of argumentation and the substance of your case, I can only conclude that your inferences are flawed, because

You take it up the a33!!!

PWN3D!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!1!

I trust the weight of my logic will persuade even the most obdurately resistant antagonist toward my point of view.

Respectfully yours,

Ace of Spades

I meant to type "expensive restaurant", not "expensive rhetoric," but now I have to figure out what "expensive rhetoric" might mean.

I have truly come to believe over the past year that Cohen is so tired of being attacked by the left blogosphere that he purposely writes stuff like this to piss us off.

As usual, this column gets to the point. Thank you. Cohen's article inspires this parable. It is long, so take it off the thread if it does not seem appropriate.

"It is often best to keep the lights off" when you are with a bear:

An Inspirational Love Story

As they say in the song, I'd been "looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces." I'd gone to cocktail parties and fundraisers. I'd put time in on the campaign buses and visited the rose garden I had never been promised. But still, I was lonely until I met the bear.

I sat a booth at the 7-11 drinking a Yoohoo when he walked in. My heartbeat quickened; my breath became shallow. I knew I must be in love (or in abject fear for my life). How could I know?

The bear slid over with another tall one and asked, "What's a nice reporter like you doing in a place like this?"

I didn't know. I was used to the lights of Washington, the witty jokes about the war at cocktail parties ("How many soldiers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" "I don't know? How many did Halliburton requisition this week?") the little black dresses and little black books, the clandestine meetings with anonymous sources in back alleys that finally helped me understand how "Deep Throat" got his name.

Yes, I'd had good times, but somehow none of it seemed real. But this bear was real: real tall, real big, and I was either really scared or really in love.

The bear said, "Why don't you come on down to my place?"

I hesitated, "I may be in love with you bear, but then again, you might just want to kill me. What should I do?"

"Just trust me," the bear said.

I though back to what all my mentors in the world of journalism had taught me. If an anonymous bear says "trust me," a editor had once told me, go ahead and trust. As long as the bear remains anonymous, no one can say he is wrong. Only those accountable can tell a lie, or be accountable for telling a lie, and that's what counts as the truth.

So I followed the bear to his car. Again, my heart raced. He might kidnap me and tear me to pieces. So I asked, "Can I really trust you?"

"I'm from the administration," the bear said. That put my mind at ease. My editors had told me that anonymous bears from the administration are always trustworthy. Administrative means authoritative. So I managed his pawing through the car ride with only a few lacerations and was contended that a short hospital visit would take care of the wounds.

Then we got to the bear's apartment. I said to the bear, "I think I love you, but can I trust you?"

The bear laughed, "I know Larry from the Christmas Party! We went to prep school together! We're in the same scrapbooking club!"

Oh! That set my mind at ease. We had the same friends. Traveled in the same circles. Of course I could trust him.

The bear opened the door to his apartment, and I walked in. The room was completely dark. I shivered for a moment. "Can I trust you?" I asked one more time.

"It is often best to keep the lights off," the bear answered. He then tore off my left arm and began to eat it.

I was aghast. How could this bear betray me? "You said I could trust you?" I exclaimed as blood spurted out of my body.

"You can trust me to be a bear." The bear said.

I fell into a coma.

I lost my limbs that day, but I learned a valuable lesson.

Of course, I can trust anonymous, unaccountable, administrative loves: I can trust them not to be held to account. I can always trust a bear to be a bear.

The bear and I were married and now live together.

Looking for love in all the wrong places? Looking for love in too many faces? Remember what the bear told me. Don't worry! In relationships, "It is often best to keep the lights off."

So if you are on a date and your heart starts pounding and your breath becomes short as your date bears his fangs, remember that you have nothing to fear. You are only in love.

As Tony Soprano would say, "Don't stop believing."