After eight years in the Bush bunker, the former Vice-President is out waterboarding voters with interviews to make them confess that electing Barack Obama was a plot to subvert national security.
Dick Cheney capped his first hundred days as a voluble has-been with a "Face the Nation" appearance yesterday to illustrate Murray Kempton's classic definition of politicians as generals who watch the battle from afar and come down afterward to shoot the wounded.
His main target was a real general, Colin Powell, whose injuries leading up to the Iraq war were inflicted by Cheney's own twisted Scooter Libby intelligence used in Powell's speech to persuade the UN that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
Asked to choose between Powell and Rush Limbaugh to represent Republican principles, Cheney did not hesitate to side with The Mouth, saying "my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican."
More and more, Cheney is looking like one of those Japanese soldiers discovered in caves long after World War II ended to emerge blinking in the daylight, convinced that their emperor was still on the throne. The difference is that they slunk off in silence, too shamed to be giving interviews.
Showing posts with label Scooter Libby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scooter Libby. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Outing Julia Child
Before there was a CIA, during World War II, there was the OSS and now more than half a century later the National Archives is releasing files on almost 24,000 Americans who worked for the agency, including Julia Child.
Although she will be mentioned in the same breath as Valerie Plame, there was nothing covert about Julia, with whom I worked for more than a decade and whose only secretive moment came on camera when she dropped food on the kitchen floor, picked it up and confided to viewers, "Don't forget. If you're alone in the kitchen, no one will know."
The OSS revelations won't come as news to anyone who knew her, since she reveled in telling about her most dramatic exploit, helping to cook up a shark repellent to coat underwater explosives and keep them away from devices meant to blow up German U-boats.
The newly released list is a reminder of that innocent time when secretly working for your country was a source of pride for people like historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who later worked in JFK's White House as well as two sons of Theodore Roosevelt and Sterling Hayden, the actor now immortalized as Al Pacino's first murder victim in "The Godfather."
Nobody had to worry about the likes of Scooter Libby blabbing their names.
Although she will be mentioned in the same breath as Valerie Plame, there was nothing covert about Julia, with whom I worked for more than a decade and whose only secretive moment came on camera when she dropped food on the kitchen floor, picked it up and confided to viewers, "Don't forget. If you're alone in the kitchen, no one will know."
The OSS revelations won't come as news to anyone who knew her, since she reveled in telling about her most dramatic exploit, helping to cook up a shark repellent to coat underwater explosives and keep them away from devices meant to blow up German U-boats.
The newly released list is a reminder of that innocent time when secretly working for your country was a source of pride for people like historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who later worked in JFK's White House as well as two sons of Theodore Roosevelt and Sterling Hayden, the actor now immortalized as Al Pacino's first murder victim in "The Godfather."
Nobody had to worry about the likes of Scooter Libby blabbing their names.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Scott McClellan's Slo-Mo Conscience
In his new book, Bush's former Press Secretary reveals his boss was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence and that some of his own statements in the White House briefing room podium were “badly misguided.”
For someone whose job it was to control information, Scott McClellan is not very good at it. It's encouraging that he is blowing the whistle on the Bush Administration, but his lips have been pursed for more than six months when his publisher leaked an excerpt last November:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
The next day McClellan's publisher explained that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
This week, advance copies of the book were given to selected reporters with an embargo on news from it until next Sunday, but Politico is spilling the beans tonight from a copy bought in a bookstore.
Now, McClellan will make a lot of money from royalties and lectures, but the question arises: Why did he wait to tell the truth until it was profitable for him to do so instead of quitting his job and going public when it might have helped save lives in Iraq and disempower some of the liars he was working with?
For someone whose job it was to control information, Scott McClellan is not very good at it. It's encouraging that he is blowing the whistle on the Bush Administration, but his lips have been pursed for more than six months when his publisher leaked an excerpt last November:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
The next day McClellan's publisher explained that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
This week, advance copies of the book were given to selected reporters with an embargo on news from it until next Sunday, but Politico is spilling the beans tonight from a copy bought in a bookstore.
Now, McClellan will make a lot of money from royalties and lectures, but the question arises: Why did he wait to tell the truth until it was profitable for him to do so instead of quitting his job and going public when it might have helped save lives in Iraq and disempower some of the liars he was working with?
Monday, March 03, 2008
Obama, Scooter Libby and Saddam
The six-degrees-of-separation game starts today as Antoin Rezko goes on trial for corruption, prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald, Scooter Libby's nemesis, after being jailed for violating his bail terms by taking $3.7 million from a British-Iraqi billionaire previously convicted of smuggling arms to Saddam Hussein.
Barack Obama is on the far margins of this ripe stew of Chicago corruption, but Hillary Clinton's top campaign advisor and the Wall Street Journal, among others, are eager to smear him with the overflow.
Obama's campaign has returned $150 million of Rezko contributions, and the candidate himself has called "boneheaded" his involvement with the slumlord in the purchase of his own home in 2005. But that may not be enough to deflect pressure to explain more fully.
“Now the trial is beginning, and I think it will be more difficult for him to avoid these various serious questions,” Howard Wolfson, the Clinton communications director, told reporters last week. “(I)f the shoe were on the other foot...I’d be having to answer them to people who are very serious investigative reporters who know the right questions to ask and don’t take ‘no comment’ for an answer.”
In the Journal today, columnist John Fund predicts, "Mr. Obama will eventually have to talk about Illinois, if only to clear the air. After John McCain last month was attacked for cozy ties to lobbyists, he held a news conference and answered every question. Hillary Clinton held a White House news conference on Whitewater and her cattle futures. Mr. Obama must do the same for questions about Mr. Rezko and 'the Chicago way' of politics. If he doesn't, they may increasingly haunt his candidacy."
Obama's meteoric rise carries with it the threat of a media backlash against his unvetted history, and opponents in both parties will do their best to make Rezko an albatross to weigh him down. After tomorrow's primaries, he would do well to try to cut it off as he races from here to November.
Barack Obama is on the far margins of this ripe stew of Chicago corruption, but Hillary Clinton's top campaign advisor and the Wall Street Journal, among others, are eager to smear him with the overflow.
Obama's campaign has returned $150 million of Rezko contributions, and the candidate himself has called "boneheaded" his involvement with the slumlord in the purchase of his own home in 2005. But that may not be enough to deflect pressure to explain more fully.
“Now the trial is beginning, and I think it will be more difficult for him to avoid these various serious questions,” Howard Wolfson, the Clinton communications director, told reporters last week. “(I)f the shoe were on the other foot...I’d be having to answer them to people who are very serious investigative reporters who know the right questions to ask and don’t take ‘no comment’ for an answer.”
In the Journal today, columnist John Fund predicts, "Mr. Obama will eventually have to talk about Illinois, if only to clear the air. After John McCain last month was attacked for cozy ties to lobbyists, he held a news conference and answered every question. Hillary Clinton held a White House news conference on Whitewater and her cattle futures. Mr. Obama must do the same for questions about Mr. Rezko and 'the Chicago way' of politics. If he doesn't, they may increasingly haunt his candidacy."
Obama's meteoric rise carries with it the threat of a media backlash against his unvetted history, and opponents in both parties will do their best to make Rezko an albatross to weigh him down. After tomorrow's primaries, he would do well to try to cut it off as he races from here to November.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Nuts-and-Bolton on Iran
As most thinking Americans breathe a sigh of relief over the NIE report on Iran, John Bolton on the editorial page of the Washington Post, that island of insanity in a screw-loose world, is here to preserve our patriotic paranoia.
The thing has flaws, and who are these spooks to tell us what the stuff they gather means? "Too much of the intelligence community," Bolton writes, "is engaging in policy formulation rather than 'intelligence' analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it."
The man who was too disagreeable to be confirmed as US Ambassador to the UN, Scooter Libby's defender, who lectured Jon Stewart with fake news about Lincoln on the Daily Show, who has been out-Cheneying the Neo-Cons in pushing Bush to attack Iran, that John Bolton wants us to know that the NIE is rash in its "psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives" based on "internally contradictory and insufficiently supported" data, is being suckered by disinformation from Iran and relies too much on "the latest hot tidbit" from its spies.
Moreover, Bolton reveals, many are "not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department" who had "relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago, now...writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high."
Bolton, who has been hearing voices from on high much longer, outranks them all and is just the clear-sighted expert to set us straight.
The thing has flaws, and who are these spooks to tell us what the stuff they gather means? "Too much of the intelligence community," Bolton writes, "is engaging in policy formulation rather than 'intelligence' analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it."
The man who was too disagreeable to be confirmed as US Ambassador to the UN, Scooter Libby's defender, who lectured Jon Stewart with fake news about Lincoln on the Daily Show, who has been out-Cheneying the Neo-Cons in pushing Bush to attack Iran, that John Bolton wants us to know that the NIE is rash in its "psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives" based on "internally contradictory and insufficiently supported" data, is being suckered by disinformation from Iran and relies too much on "the latest hot tidbit" from its spies.
Moreover, Bolton reveals, many are "not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department" who had "relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago, now...writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high."
Bolton, who has been hearing voices from on high much longer, outranks them all and is just the clear-sighted expert to set us straight.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Scott McClellan's Script Tease
Say this much for Dana Perino: She may not be the most scintillating White House press secretary in history but, after writing her memoirs, she won't be performing the verbal strip tease Scott McClellan did this week to get attention for his.
Earlier in this slow news week, his publisher posted 121 words from McClellan's oevre that won't be available until next April:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
Most journalists (silly people) took this to mean that George W. Bush was "involved" in lies about Rove and Libby to the press.
But after getting attention with this admission, McClellan's publisher now tells us it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Peter Osnos of Public Affairs Books explains that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
Oh. Sounds a lot like the kind of work McClellan used to do from behind the White House podium.
The history of the Bush Administration's downfall can be traced in the arc of attractiveness of its spokespeople. When they were riding high, the media were held at bay by boring dough-faced types like McClellan and Ari Fleischer. Later, when the going got tough, they were replaced by the smoother and better-looking Tony Snow and Perino.
At this rate, Bush and Cheney should scouring Hollywood casting officers for a communications closer.
Earlier in this slow news week, his publisher posted 121 words from McClellan's oevre that won't be available until next April:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
Most journalists (silly people) took this to mean that George W. Bush was "involved" in lies about Rove and Libby to the press.
But after getting attention with this admission, McClellan's publisher now tells us it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Peter Osnos of Public Affairs Books explains that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
Oh. Sounds a lot like the kind of work McClellan used to do from behind the White House podium.
The history of the Bush Administration's downfall can be traced in the arc of attractiveness of its spokespeople. When they were riding high, the media were held at bay by boring dough-faced types like McClellan and Ari Fleischer. Later, when the going got tough, they were replaced by the smoother and better-looking Tony Snow and Perino.
At this rate, Bush and Cheney should scouring Hollywood casting officers for a communications closer.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Pardoning the Turkey
The White House should cancel this year's annual event of sparing an awkward bird just before Thanksgiving because George Bush did that before the fourth of July when he freed Scooter Libby.
But the ceremony is still on. After the Rose Garden pardon, the turkey will be flown first class to Orlando to be grand marshal of “Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” After the parade, guests will be able to socialize with the bird in a backyard at Magic Kingdom Park.
No news about Libby's plans for the holidays, but it's safe to assume he won't be leading any parades or receiving visits from old friends of the Washington press corps at Disney World or anywhere else.
"The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted," Bush said on July 2nd. So far this year he has exercised it for Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and a 45-pound fowl.
But the ceremony is still on. After the Rose Garden pardon, the turkey will be flown first class to Orlando to be grand marshal of “Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” After the parade, guests will be able to socialize with the bird in a backyard at Magic Kingdom Park.
No news about Libby's plans for the holidays, but it's safe to assume he won't be leading any parades or receiving visits from old friends of the Washington press corps at Disney World or anywhere else.
"The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted," Bush said on July 2nd. So far this year he has exercised it for Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and a 45-pound fowl.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Audiences with the Imperial Vice-President
Brace yourself, they’re unleashing Dick Cheney this week. He snarled a bit for CBS yesterday. Tonight he should be in full-throated mode on CNN with Larry King.
If Cheney is the Administration’s answer, how desperate must the public relations problem be? From his usual darkness and silence, there are now glimmers and grunts. So far this week we have these emanations:
*He is a “big fan” of Alberto Gonzales: “I think the key is whether or not he has the confidence of the president--and he clearly does."
*Scooter Libby: “I disagreed with the verdict,” but conceded "I thought the president handled it right. I supported his decision."
*Is he part of the Executive branch of government? “Well, I suppose you could argue it either way. The fact is I do work in both branches.”
*Invading Iran: A report in the London Guardian claims Bush, under pressure from Cheney, is agreeing to “carry out military action against Iran before he leaves office.”
How did we get to this Imperial Vice-Presidency from a position that used to involve no more than getting up every morning and asking about the President’s health? In the Washington Post last weekend, Walter Mondale offered a few clues by describing his experience:
“Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.”
So the Democrats are to blame for Cheney gone wild, kicking over the “bucket of warm piss,” as John Nance Garner described the job, and splattering us all.
If Cheney is the Administration’s answer, how desperate must the public relations problem be? From his usual darkness and silence, there are now glimmers and grunts. So far this week we have these emanations:
*He is a “big fan” of Alberto Gonzales: “I think the key is whether or not he has the confidence of the president--and he clearly does."
*Scooter Libby: “I disagreed with the verdict,” but conceded "I thought the president handled it right. I supported his decision."
*Is he part of the Executive branch of government? “Well, I suppose you could argue it either way. The fact is I do work in both branches.”
*Invading Iran: A report in the London Guardian claims Bush, under pressure from Cheney, is agreeing to “carry out military action against Iran before he leaves office.”
How did we get to this Imperial Vice-Presidency from a position that used to involve no more than getting up every morning and asking about the President’s health? In the Washington Post last weekend, Walter Mondale offered a few clues by describing his experience:
“Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.”
So the Democrats are to blame for Cheney gone wild, kicking over the “bucket of warm piss,” as John Nance Garner described the job, and splattering us all.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
ABC's Leaky Terrorist Coverage
Al Jazeera West is at it again. ABC TV’s doughty “investigative team,” which specializes in Al Qaeda handouts, is reporting the impending Mother of All Terrorist Attacks, as gleaned from an exclusive interview with Taliban military commander Mansour Dadullah.
"You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist, according to ABC.
“Just last month,” the network notes, “Dadullah presided over what was termed a terror training camp graduation ceremony in Pakistan, supposedly dispatching attack teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.”
The question arises: Why are Dadullah and his “Pakistani journalist” being so good to ABC? Last month, they gave the network an exclusive on the “graduation ceremony,” which was dutifully reported without qualification.
No one would want to dampen the investigative team’s zeal for terrorist coverage, but perhaps Brian Ross and his crew are cultivating their sources a bit too much.
Terrorists must have their Scooter Libbys, too, and it would be a shame if American journalists hadn’t learned to be more skeptical of all leakers bearing gifts.
"You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist, according to ABC.
“Just last month,” the network notes, “Dadullah presided over what was termed a terror training camp graduation ceremony in Pakistan, supposedly dispatching attack teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.”
The question arises: Why are Dadullah and his “Pakistani journalist” being so good to ABC? Last month, they gave the network an exclusive on the “graduation ceremony,” which was dutifully reported without qualification.
No one would want to dampen the investigative team’s zeal for terrorist coverage, but perhaps Brian Ross and his crew are cultivating their sources a bit too much.
Terrorists must have their Scooter Libbys, too, and it would be a shame if American journalists hadn’t learned to be more skeptical of all leakers bearing gifts.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Libby: Better Marc Rich Than a Dreyfus
As House Democrats talk of investigating and even censuring President Bush’s commutation of his sentence, Scooter Libby is being compared by Republicans to Marc Rich, the recipient of Bill Clinton’s pardoning largesse.
This debate promises to be more tonic for the state of public morality than the one that would have been followed Bush’s failure to do so.
Imagine the righteous fury of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers playing Zola to Libby’s Captain Dreyfus with photoshopped images of Cheney’s former chief of staff in prison stripes with numbers on his chest. Compare that to their muttering and bumbling defense of the commutation.
Libby as rescued loser serves the cause of exposing Bush-Cheney lawlessness much better than Libby the martyr would have.
"We're trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power," says John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as Rep. Robert Wexler drafts a resolution to censure Bush for "an unconscionable abuse of authority."
With the coming Senate showdown over subpoenas of White House witnesses in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, this proposed examining and censuring, although it will lead nowhere, is a nice side show to the main attraction.
This debate promises to be more tonic for the state of public morality than the one that would have been followed Bush’s failure to do so.
Imagine the righteous fury of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers playing Zola to Libby’s Captain Dreyfus with photoshopped images of Cheney’s former chief of staff in prison stripes with numbers on his chest. Compare that to their muttering and bumbling defense of the commutation.
Libby as rescued loser serves the cause of exposing Bush-Cheney lawlessness much better than Libby the martyr would have.
"We're trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power," says John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as Rep. Robert Wexler drafts a resolution to censure Bush for "an unconscionable abuse of authority."
With the coming Senate showdown over subpoenas of White House witnesses in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, this proposed examining and censuring, although it will lead nowhere, is a nice side show to the main attraction.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
When They Look Back at Libby
Future researchers digging through the legal and political rubble of US v. I. Lewis Libby may be puzzled to find:
“If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the President said in 2004 about the outing of Valerie Plame. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”
In 2007, he took care of the leaker by commuting his 30-month sentence before it started.
Libby, who was found guilty, did not serve one minute. A New York Times reporter was behind bars for 85 days.
The Vice President’s former chief of staff was fined $250,000. His admirers raised $5 million for his defense, none of which, they insisted, would be used to pay that obligation.
The day after the commutation, a New York Times editorial titled “Soft on Crime” said Mr. Bush “sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”
The same day on the facing page, columnist David Brooks wrote: “The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby’s family will remember it in a few weeks time.”
Whatever those future researchers conclude, they may find it a curious setback for the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of the press and, perhaps most of all, plain-spoken honesty in public discourse.
“If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the President said in 2004 about the outing of Valerie Plame. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”
In 2007, he took care of the leaker by commuting his 30-month sentence before it started.
Libby, who was found guilty, did not serve one minute. A New York Times reporter was behind bars for 85 days.
The Vice President’s former chief of staff was fined $250,000. His admirers raised $5 million for his defense, none of which, they insisted, would be used to pay that obligation.
The day after the commutation, a New York Times editorial titled “Soft on Crime” said Mr. Bush “sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”
The same day on the facing page, columnist David Brooks wrote: “The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby’s family will remember it in a few weeks time.”
Whatever those future researchers conclude, they may find it a curious setback for the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of the press and, perhaps most of all, plain-spoken honesty in public discourse.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Failing Upward, Going In
Two days after cleaning out his desk at the World Bank after resigning in disgrace, Paul Wolfowitz has a new job advising the American Enterprise Institute on "entrepreneurship and development issues, Africa and public-private partnerships."
The good news is tempered by word that Wolfowitz's colleague in getting us into Iraq will have to start serving his 30-month term as soon as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons tells him where and when.
Life just isn't fair.
The good news is tempered by word that Wolfowitz's colleague in getting us into Iraq will have to start serving his 30-month term as soon as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons tells him where and when.
Life just isn't fair.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Why I Hope Bush Pardons Libby
Not least of the vileness that Bush, Cheney and Rove have brought into our public life is the rage of those who cherish traditional American respect for law and decency.
That’s why I hope Bush pardons Scooter Libby. His doing so would frustrate our desire for retribution but at the cost of implicating his entire Administration in the hateful enterprise of which Libby’s actions were a part.
How could he believably justify it? He has nothing like Gerald Ford’s excuse that a Nixon pardon would put an ugly period in history behind us? Saving Libby would clearly end nothing but the pressure on Bush not to let an underling go to prison for serving him loyally.
I have no sympathy for Libby but neither do I have a burning desire to see him behind bars. His bosses haven’t reduced me to that. It would be a fair trade-off to see him free if it meant making Bush associate himself with the sordid work Libby was doing on his behalf.
If that sounds too high-minded, so be it. We used to be a country where politicians could disagree without trying to destroy each other. We won’t get that back by letting Bush and Cheney drag us down to their level of vindictiveness.
Now if Congressional investigations can prove criminal behavior by Karl Rove, that would be another matter entirely.
That’s why I hope Bush pardons Scooter Libby. His doing so would frustrate our desire for retribution but at the cost of implicating his entire Administration in the hateful enterprise of which Libby’s actions were a part.
How could he believably justify it? He has nothing like Gerald Ford’s excuse that a Nixon pardon would put an ugly period in history behind us? Saving Libby would clearly end nothing but the pressure on Bush not to let an underling go to prison for serving him loyally.
I have no sympathy for Libby but neither do I have a burning desire to see him behind bars. His bosses haven’t reduced me to that. It would be a fair trade-off to see him free if it meant making Bush associate himself with the sordid work Libby was doing on his behalf.
If that sounds too high-minded, so be it. We used to be a country where politicians could disagree without trying to destroy each other. We won’t get that back by letting Bush and Cheney drag us down to their level of vindictiveness.
Now if Congressional investigations can prove criminal behavior by Karl Rove, that would be another matter entirely.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Novak's Lost Faith in Bush
Disillusion is always saddening and, in the case of Robert Novak, it’s positively heart-breaking.
His column in today’s Washington Post is filled with wounded rue. Hiding his feelings behind such entities as the Republican “base” and “insiders,” Novak reports,” The White House is not a happy place for the people working there.”
Chief among the complaints is Bush’s failure to consider a pardon for faithful Scooter while standing by Alberto, “an embarrassment to the party.”
What Novak seems to be missing is that “embarrassment” may be a happier option for the President than the alternative--letting him go and having him recover his memory (and maybe even e-mails) about Karl Rove’s role in firing the U.S. Attorneys.
Novak is sounding more and more like a left-leaning blogger these days, but he seems to be holding on to a glimmer of hope that Fred Thompson can make all the pain go away.
His column in today’s Washington Post is filled with wounded rue. Hiding his feelings behind such entities as the Republican “base” and “insiders,” Novak reports,” The White House is not a happy place for the people working there.”
Chief among the complaints is Bush’s failure to consider a pardon for faithful Scooter while standing by Alberto, “an embarrassment to the party.”
What Novak seems to be missing is that “embarrassment” may be a happier option for the President than the alternative--letting him go and having him recover his memory (and maybe even e-mails) about Karl Rove’s role in firing the U.S. Attorneys.
Novak is sounding more and more like a left-leaning blogger these days, but he seems to be holding on to a glimmer of hope that Fred Thompson can make all the pain go away.
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