Libby Is The Label
Well, whaddaya know? The libs were right after all. Operation Iraqi Freedom was an elective war. There were no WMD, never were any WMD, and were never going to be any WMD. Saddam Hussein was a purely innocent bystander victim of neocon aggression and his execution last year was an illegal assassination and a Bush war crime. Joe Wilson did prove all of this with his trip to Niger, and his CIA spook wife, Valerie, was a covert agent and her cover was blown. All of this was the nefarious work of the abominable Bush Administration, which did manipulate and fabricate pre-war intelligence in order to lie us into a war that was a distraction from the real war on terror, which is a law enforcement matter. And masterminding it all was the real-life Dr. Evil, Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney himself. Mwa ha ha ha ha.
All of the above was, of course, complete and utter BS up until yesterday. And, in reality, it still is. But as an old saying goes, history is written by the winners. The conviction of former Cheney chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice will now be applied to the entire gamut of "anti-war" seditions as "proof" of them all. And with the Enemy Media already galloping this horse everywhere at once, and the Democrats back in power on Capitol Hill, their avalanche of subpeonas on the launching pad, this is the version of "history" that will become the conventional wisdom, the truth be damned.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Twenty years down the line from the big bunch of nothing that was Iran-Contra, another withering Republican Administration is under siege from the DisLoyal Opposition and its relentless compulsion to criminalize any and all policy differences. The only real differences are that this time the prosecutor wasn't an independent cousel but came from George Bush's own Justice Department, and until two months ago the Congress was in GOP hands. Which says all you need to know about how much heed the White House will pay to the center-right urgings for a Libby pardon.
Don't expect any of the sort of slap-on-the-wrist leniency for Libby that Dems like Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger received for far more egregious and brazen crimes of the same sort, either. Those were, well, "law enforcement operations" that were sabotaged by the same political stacked deck that will demand, and secure, a long prison term for Libby. Because, you see, he will not suffer such correctional overkill for failing to remember a several years ago-conversation with eidetic accuracy, but as the sacrificial goat for every reversal the Left has ever suffered at the hands of George W. Bush going all the way back to Florida 2000. It's why the biased judge constricted the defense, why Patrick Fitzgerald spent more time arguing the Donk case against the war than the actual charges against Libby, and why a jury was selected whose Bushophobia was evidently inversely proportional to its ability to rub three brain cells together.
If you're Libby, you've got to be wondering how such a disaster, such a miscarriage of justice, could possibly have happened to you. How your distinguished career in public service, culminating in a high-level position working for arguably one of the greatest vice presidents ever (I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but I'm serious) could have transformed you into a partisan effigy to be burned at the metaphorical stake. You can be certain a lot of other Scooter Libbys will take note of his fate and be that much less likely to ever bother serving the conservative movement or any GOP administration (whenever there's another one) for a long, long time to come.
I wouldn't be surprised if Libby is being offered a plea bargain in exchange for becoming a star witness in the next chapter of this witchhunt, whether that's going after Karl Rove again (to what end, though, after last November's defeat?) or going for the jugular and bringing down Big Time himself. Guess we'll see how loyal Libby really is.
Either way, though, the propaganda story has already been written and is now being graven in stone: Wilson was right, the Senate Intelligence Committee and British Intelligence were wrong, Bush lied, people died. And if Dick Cheney had a mustache, he'd be twirling the ends like Snidely Whiplash.
In a way, it reminds me of what the Wall Street Journal said after then-Speaker Newt Gingrich copped his needless ethics plea ten years ago:
Difference is, now the Dems already have those keys firmly in hand, never to be relinquished again. And another Clinton White House is only a matter of time.
Makes you wonder if the Bushies think Libby will be the end of this sordid saga. Or if they even care.
All of the above was, of course, complete and utter BS up until yesterday. And, in reality, it still is. But as an old saying goes, history is written by the winners. The conviction of former Cheney chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice will now be applied to the entire gamut of "anti-war" seditions as "proof" of them all. And with the Enemy Media already galloping this horse everywhere at once, and the Democrats back in power on Capitol Hill, their avalanche of subpeonas on the launching pad, this is the version of "history" that will become the conventional wisdom, the truth be damned.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Twenty years down the line from the big bunch of nothing that was Iran-Contra, another withering Republican Administration is under siege from the DisLoyal Opposition and its relentless compulsion to criminalize any and all policy differences. The only real differences are that this time the prosecutor wasn't an independent cousel but came from George Bush's own Justice Department, and until two months ago the Congress was in GOP hands. Which says all you need to know about how much heed the White House will pay to the center-right urgings for a Libby pardon.
Don't expect any of the sort of slap-on-the-wrist leniency for Libby that Dems like Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger received for far more egregious and brazen crimes of the same sort, either. Those were, well, "law enforcement operations" that were sabotaged by the same political stacked deck that will demand, and secure, a long prison term for Libby. Because, you see, he will not suffer such correctional overkill for failing to remember a several years ago-conversation with eidetic accuracy, but as the sacrificial goat for every reversal the Left has ever suffered at the hands of George W. Bush going all the way back to Florida 2000. It's why the biased judge constricted the defense, why Patrick Fitzgerald spent more time arguing the Donk case against the war than the actual charges against Libby, and why a jury was selected whose Bushophobia was evidently inversely proportional to its ability to rub three brain cells together.
If you're Libby, you've got to be wondering how such a disaster, such a miscarriage of justice, could possibly have happened to you. How your distinguished career in public service, culminating in a high-level position working for arguably one of the greatest vice presidents ever (I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but I'm serious) could have transformed you into a partisan effigy to be burned at the metaphorical stake. You can be certain a lot of other Scooter Libbys will take note of his fate and be that much less likely to ever bother serving the conservative movement or any GOP administration (whenever there's another one) for a long, long time to come.
I wouldn't be surprised if Libby is being offered a plea bargain in exchange for becoming a star witness in the next chapter of this witchhunt, whether that's going after Karl Rove again (to what end, though, after last November's defeat?) or going for the jugular and bringing down Big Time himself. Guess we'll see how loyal Libby really is.
Either way, though, the propaganda story has already been written and is now being graven in stone: Wilson was right, the Senate Intelligence Committee and British Intelligence were wrong, Bush lied, people died. And if Dick Cheney had a mustache, he'd be twirling the ends like Snidely Whiplash.
In a way, it reminds me of what the Wall Street Journal said after then-Speaker Newt Gingrich copped his needless ethics plea ten years ago:
"If House Republicans let their leader be blown away over next to nothing...and [don't] go ahead with hearings on the real ethical abuses by the Clinton White House...they may as well step down as the majority and turn the keys to Congress directly over to their betters in combat, Dick Gephardt and David Bonior."
Difference is, now the Dems already have those keys firmly in hand, never to be relinquished again. And another Clinton White House is only a matter of time.
Makes you wonder if the Bushies think Libby will be the end of this sordid saga. Or if they even care.
posted by JASmius at 9:23 AM
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