Very well put, Rich. He got this one right. You just can't put the Vice President in prison, not for anything less than, say, a capital crime, and everyone knows that Scooter was going down for Cheney. Scooter should've been more careful with his testimony, but the man has done too much for this country's national security interests to put him behind bars. The argument isn't even a close one. In fact, it should've been a full pardon. That it was not is an indicator that Bush was still a little weary of a backlash.

--Squatting Egret
 

The interesting thing is that Bush did NOT pardon Libby. The conviction remains on his record. So Bush put himself in a position where people will throw stuff at him anyway, even though he did not exonerate Libby.
 

My thought too. If you're going to get wet...

--Squatting Egret
 

Yeah, real frickin intriguing, this one, Richard. "Why did Bush commute Libby's sentence?"
Answer: "Because it was there."

Period. He could do it so he did. He would have done it even if it cost him fiver percentage points. Libby was taking the fall for the VP and the President himself. If from the beginning he had faced real jail time he might have decided to turn state's evidence. This is just the final piece of the obstruction-of-justice game plan (Phase IV, if you will; when it's their own lives at stake these guys always develop an exit strategy), and was foreordained.

Why not a pardon? Easy. If Libby's sentence stands, he can still appeal it; as long as he's appealing it, he has a right not to incriminate himself; and as long as he has that right he can plead the fifth rather than being forced to testify about the involvement of POTUS and VPOTUS in the outing of a CIA covert operative for the political purpose of (falsely) undermining the credibility of an Administration critic (Joe Wilson).

(Squatting Egret and 1:33, the fact that you don't know the above-mentioned difference between the pardon and the commutation in terms of what happens to the administration's accountability from here suggests strongly that you're not qualified to weigh in on this matter. Stop being passively intrigued and do a little reading.)

"[If he can't get his policy initiatives through Congress] he's going to use the powers of the presidency to do what he can unilaterally."

Indeed he is. Indeed he is. If you find that intriguing and not disturbing I'm going to go out on a limb and call you a sick SOB. Or perhaps you're a monarchist, like the bulk of our celebrity-focused power-worshiping media.

And by the way if you think commuting the sentence of your political colleague because he lied on purpose to protect you is what Pres. Bush thinks is "RIGHT" then either you or Bush has a very different definition of that word than the rest of the English-speaking world. For most people 'right' indicates that some moral judgment is being made. Fulfilling your end of a quid pro quo is an inherently amoral act.

Squatting Egret, your opinions on this matter are as unfounded as they are shocking. "You can't put the VP behind bars for anything less than" -- well, here I would substitute "high crimes and misdemeanors," as the Constitution does, and I would inquire who the HELL you think "YOU" is. Why CAN'T "you" put the VP behind bars? Who the hell do *you* think you are? What's your basis for saying that there can be NO POSSIBLE ACCOUNTABILITY for Vice-Presidential criminality?

As for the notion that SL "has done too much for this country's national security interests to put him behind bars," I am poised to laugh you to scorn. What the hell has he done? What accomplishment of ANY KIND can *anyone* in this administration point to since the fall of the Taliban? Do you think other people convicted of perjury have no accomplishments in their lives to point to? At a minimum most such defendants can now say, "Your Honor, I committed this crime but I am not directly responsible for the deaths of 3500 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, with hundreds of thousands more probable in the whirlwind of war to come in the next twelve years."


The real reason that people like Elliot Abrams, Oliver North, and Scooter Libby face no consequences for their crimes is the same reason that they keep getting put into positions of importance. They are members of the club. And the club includes as members-at-large anyone who is bemused rather than outraged by the unprincipled exercise of power.

Here's a little thought experiment for you. Visit the cell of anyone in this country serving two or more years for perjury under the same perfectly clear sentencing guidelines that resulted in Libby's sentence. Explain to them why having a Very Important Job should immunize anyone against facing the same consequence that they are currently serving out. (Try to imagine a legitimate answer to the question "Isn't lying about something Very Important worse than lying about the petty embezzling my buddy was doing?") Make it clear that the issue in this case was the professional viability of the person in charge of a big part of the nonproliferation portfolio at CIA, and the physical safety of her sources (not something major like sex in the Oval Office).

See how those people in jail react. Then come back and talk to me about being intrigued rather than outraged.

Intrigued. You'll get over being intrigued very quickly when you make a little effort and find out what's actually gone on. The point of intrigue is that you then investigate, and get your facts right. If you just stay intrigued indefinitely you're not longer intrigued, you're complicit.


"It would be nice if he governed from the center and tried to do things that were good for the country—but it's probably too late for that. ... a thankless task."

Indeed. Why do things that are good for 300 million people when you can do something nice for a guy you know personally? He at least will thank you and send a card.


Here's another little fact you'll like, especially if you think I'm just a voracious Democrat who cares only about the success and image of his/her party: Marc Rich's lawyer, who pushed for his pardon? A gentleman by the name of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Perhaps you've heard of him.

...We've all heard of him now. Convicted criminal. Family man. Did the crime but couldn't face the time. Crybaby, anti-law-and-order guy, and character assassin. Architect of a system of unchecked vice-presidential access leading to at least three years of uninformed presidential decision-making. Walks among us, the object of intrigue to insider journalists and of contempt to everyone who knows the facts of his story.

GW Bush you might have heard of too. Takes care of his friends, fucks everybody else.

Standing Eagle


http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670

[Tucker] Carlson asked Bush if he had met with any of the petitioners [for clemency] and was surprised when Bush whipped around, stared at him, and snapped, "No, I didn't meet with any of them." Carlson, who until that moment had admired Bush, said that Bush's curt response made him feel as if he had just asked "the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed." Bush went on to tell him that he had also refused to meet Larry King when he came to Texas to interview [Karla Faye] Tucker but had watched the interview on television. King, Bush said, asked Tucker difficult questions, such as "What would you say to Governor Bush?"

What did [K.F.] Tucker answer? Carlson asked.

"Please," Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "please, don't kill me."

--Any questions?
 

In a word: "loyalty," but Standing Eagle's pretty well on the mark with his thoughts.
 

By the way there's only one reason this superficially minor case (a few conversations with journalists) is the place where White House lawlessness is being worked through in the courts. We could be doing the same thing with any number of other crimes (and of course there are other possible crimes other administrations might have committed; but here I can think of dozens, from violations of the Hatch Act to lying to Congress to improper use of military contractors to negligent wrongful deaths).

In this case though John Ashcroft happened to appoint an independent prosecutor. And that prosecutor happened to get an appropriately wide mandate.

Fitzgerald is the only reason Libby is no longer at work. And even Rove was within an ace of being ousted as well.

That is what the legal system is for. God knows what is to be done about the independent-prosecutor law, but I'll tell you this much: if there are to be independent prosecutors from now on, they better damn well be independent across the board from party loyalty. Fitzgerald is such a one. All US Attorneys should be cut from his cloth.

SE
 

GYODB
 

SE, thanks for your helpful explanation. Now. We know you're furious about what happened here, but the blast at my ignorance was uncalled for, given that Richard made no effort to distinguish a pardon from a commutation. Unless you also want to suggest that Richard himself was so ignorant he shouldn't have started the thread in the first place ... the blog works better if you use it to educate (which you do very well) and limit the insults. But whatever. Happy Independence Day. - Anon 1:33
 

SE,

Wake up on the wrong side of bed this morning?

I suppose that when you're a journalist, you tend to react to events not with outrage, but with a desire to interpret and explain them. Outrage has its place, but it isn't the only legitimate response.

I will say, for example, that I find your political posts the least suasive and least well-argued of all that you write, and I think your passion is why; it gets the better of you. And sometimes, as today, you are reduced to name-calling.
 

I think Squatting Egret, Standing Eagle and Richard Bradley are all one and the same. A Mystery of the Trinity of sorts, if not an indication of the complexity of all these personalities...
 

"I think your passion is why."

No, Richard, the reason you find my posts about US politics unpersuasive is quite different: only in the political posts am I angry at YOU (as a representative of journalistic institutions, and clearly susceptible to its temptations).

Your defense against that anger, when it's directed at you, is to consider yourself unpersuaded.

Be persuaded that your initial post on this matter is troubling; and know that the reason it is troubling is clear from the thing you say in this last comment.

"When you're a journalist, you tend to react to events not with outrage, but with a desire to interpret and explain them."
Let's take this claim at face value. What do you do in this post that actually interprets Bush's action? I'd argue, for starters, that it's not possible to interpret his action without understanding Libby's crime, and the special importance of his loyalty.

I submit that this 'interpretation' thing is a smokescreen. You're trying to explain why you're not outraged, and along the way you claim to be dispassionately 'interpreting.' That way, no use of the faculties of judgment is called for, and you're a cool, neutral observer. You can assume that people are governed by the usual kind of political and moral concerns, and not by (for example) the need to cover up heinous acts.

Is this any different from what everyone did in considering Summers a victim of (the usual) university 'political correctness' rather than something specific to his place and time?

Fundamentally -- and this is the real refutation of your posture -- what you've done here is not interpretative. You propose two frameworks for understanding Bush's action: one in which he cares nothing for popular support, because nothing he tries to accomplish using 'political capital' is going to be effective. He can't even get his immigration reform stuff moving in Congress. So his only recourse is to work unilaterally. And then the other claim is that he cares *only* for popular support, and is looking to boost his poll numbers so that he can -- -- well, what? What is he going to do with 32 percent that he can't do with 27? How is this theory about popular support not negated by your first theory?

Fundamentally, you can't entertain both these theories at the same time. They're the pseudo-interpretations of someone that isn't interested in gathering facts to see what theories might be supported by the situation. They're ways of fitting an extraordinarily radical and unAmerican presidency into the frames of understanding we call 'politics as usual.'

Here's the truth:
Why did Bush do what he did? Nothing to do with voters. He doesn't care about voters; he brags constantly about not caring about polls. And nothing to do with 'rightness.' That's a term he applies after the fact to whatever he does, no matter how badly it turns out or how many people find it morally wrong (see Glenn Greenwald's new book on his Manicheism for more on this). And if he really had a principled basis for finding Libby's sentence excessive he would have stated it -- and had him serve perhaps a day, a month, or even a year of it, before commuting off the excess.

Voters and principles are the explanatory principles you invoke here; perfectly cool and rational. But in fact, I would say that voting and principle are the two categories this Administration has treated with the most impudence of all. --And yet they're the ones you pick to try to 'interpret' Bush's action. It's laughable to say that you're shedding any light on this matter with your post today.

It is the time, if you know the facts, for more heat, and less light. You're not going to cast any kind of appropriately intense light unless it comes from some kind of ardency about the United States and its values.

Bottom line: your post today said that you believe something like this: When you're a journalist you tend to respond to events not with outrage but with bemused indifference. And that indifference was manifest in your unwillingness to acquaint yourself with the facts or even to prevent your "two theories" from contradicting each other.


Name-calling is one unfortunate aspect of my heat about these matters of principle and coherence in public life. Haste and a hectoring tone are others. So some apologies, I guess -- but begrudging ones, dammit all!


Fired up,

SE
 

Richard,

Let me point out too in my own defense that Squatting Egret's posts are enabled by your cool and reasoned demeanor. You're encouraging wrongheaded people to find reinforcement of their views when you write a post like this.

"Everyone knows Scooter was going down for Cheney, and therefore he shouldn't have to go down at all. Moreover, this guy who mired us in the Mideast and printed in major newspapers the name of a covert CIA operative in charge of nuclear nonproliferation has done so MUCH for our national security that he deserves to get out of jail free." That's what Squatting Egret believes, and when journalists are levelheaded about naked displays of unprincipled power such beliefs find purchase and reinforcement. You have a responsibility not to be counterintuitive and exculpatory when so many people's intuitions are fundamentally warped by these sick, sick political times.

Happy Fourth of July.

SE
 

SE,

I admire your passion, I do. But you don't have a monopoly on the facts, and at least in your most recent post, you don't even present any facts.

You also twist my words; you know quite well that the following is not what I said: "your post today said that you believe something like this: When you're a journalist you tend to respond to events not with outrage but with bemused indifference."

As for what is now your most recent post—I'm not trying to be counter-intuitive. (It just happens that way!) Seriously, though, I just put forward a couple of theories. One is that Bush doesn't give a damn about much of anything anymore, so what the hell; the other is he's trying to energize the base. Neither of those ideas seems so crazy. Or even counter-intuitive.
 

But those theories are mutually contradictory. If you'd picked just one I'd think you might be trying to match it to a set of facts; but if you think both are equally valid for us to consider, it suggests that you believe facts don't matter.
 

Oops, I initially wrote that you have a responsibility not to SEEM counterintuitive. However noncounterintuitive you might find your post, Squatting Egret's response -- it's perfectly okay and not even a close call for the President to commute the sentence of a member of the White House staff involved in a cover-up -- is definitely counterintuitive.

I think I changed my verb from 'seem counterintuitive' to 'be counterintuitive' because you said you didn't blame Bush for issuing the commutation. That seems counterintuitive to me for the same reason Squatting Egret's opinion does -- the self-evident Bush conflict of interest.

SE
 

Standing Eagle:

Well, today you were long winded but most certainly not boring and just a teensy bit over the top. I too appreciate your passion as it becomes increasingly difficult to watch this administration. It should then make you happy to know that they have just announced on CNN that a Committee will be formed to investigate this act of clemency by the President. Watch CNN for details of this breaking news. I saw it as I was reading your diatribe against Richard and Squatting Egret. I believe, however, that Richard is right about what journalists can and cannot do. He throws it out there...you respond. Outrage belongs to "We the People". Nice to see you in a good mood, SE. Happy Independence Day.

lmpaulsen
 

SE clearly has it right as always in these matters. Commute comes only after the stay out of jail procedures come to an end -- right after the unanimous appeals court decision not to delay his incarceration. The pardon will come in Jan. 2009, or before if the appeal fails before then. What was important was keeping him out of jail, and unavailable to finger Cheney et al. while that process is dragged on as long as possible, which is why the Weekly Standard and such won't be clamoring for immediate pardons. The fine is of course a red herring.

Given all of this, the passion, anger, even rudeness of SE is quite appropriate, and we should all be feeling it and expressing it (passion and anger anyway), and since SE does both so well, long may you run, SE
 

Fitzgerald could charge no one with the crime of exposing a covert agent. The rest of it has been a tired, one-ring circus.

Scooter staying home does not bother me.

SE, diarrhea of the blog is an ugly thing even on the most passionate.

--Squatting Egret
 

"Fitzgerald could charge no one with the crime of exposing a covert agent."

He could have but he wasn't confident he could prove it in every particular beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. There's a high bar for proving it was on purpose, etc.

It would be irresponsible to bring charges he wasn't confident he could prove.

The fact that no one was indicted does not believe that *anyone* thinks no crime occurred. It's not a prosecutor's job to punish crimes he believes happened; it's his job to bring charges he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. (Question for Critical Thought: was this a distinction Ken Starr, with his beliefs about the Clintons' criminality, understood? Why or why not?)

Richard, thanks for reading up and doing the new post.

SE
 

What basis do you have for saying:
"He could have but he wasn't confident he could prove it in every particular beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury."
Were you privy to Mr. Fitzgerald's thoughts?
 

No, the point is only that the lack of indictment doesn't prove that there was no underlying crime. Far from it.

When I say 'he could have,' I mean that he was considering it -- it was after all the charge he was given by the Attorney General. Witness recalcitrance and lying could be one reason no charge was brought; innocence is another; the high bar for proof under the Foreign Intelligence Identities Act is yet another. The point is that 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is a high standard for a prosecutor to work to reach, and lack of confidence in the evidence does not mean there was no crime.

Consider OJ if you like.

SE
 

And confidence in the evidence does not mean that there was a crime. As an outsider, you have no idea.
SE, stick to Harvard material, where you have some knowledge.
 

"Confidence in the evidence does not mean that there was a crime."

I'm not sure your sentence means what you think it means.

But if you're trying to say that I have no basis for second-guessing Fitzgerald's lack of indictment or believing that he should have brought one, you're right.

On the other hand, her name was in the paper as an operative, and according to the CIA she was covert before that. So it's not unreasonable to suppose that the law might be a little bit concerned about that state of affairs.

My point is that my (not absolute) belief that there was probably a crime committed is not second-guessing: I'm not trying to say that Fitgerald SHOULD HAVE indicted someone. Only to say that we can't conclude from the lack of an indictment that 'there was no underlying crime,' as all the parrots on TV keep trying to claim.

Here's my take, though, on the sequence of White House actions, based on what is established clearly in the newspapers. As a layman with, you're quite right, no inside knowledge, I call it treason.

Happy Fifth of July! Back to work --

SE


Prescient quotes from ancillary Founders, from the Balkinization blog (and incidentally, I think the first citation is incorrect; the first quote is from an Anti-Federalist Paper from the same year by George Bell or someone):

George Mason [sic], a distinguished Virginian who refused to sign the Constitution because of its lack of a bill of rights, noted that "the President of the United States has the unrestrained Power of granting Pardon for Treason; which may be sometimes exercised to screen from Punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the Crime, and thereby prevent a Discovery of his own guilt." Luther Martin, a somewhat less distinguished but extremely interesting non-signatory from Maryland (who also raised questions about the collaboration with slavery), also objected to the potential "attempt [of the President] to assume to himself powers not given by the constitution, and establish himself in regal authority; in which attempt a provision is made for him to secure from punishment the creatures of his ambition, the associates and abettors of his treasonable practices, by granting them pardons should they be defeated in their attempts to subvert the constitution."


http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/07/were-anti-federalists-really-paranoid.html
 

Here's a clearer and more informed version of what seems to a few at least to be hard to understand:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/were_crimes_committed.php

"The answer is that the reason why Armitage, Libby, and the other leakers weren't prosecuted under the IIPA is that the IIPA requires proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the leaker had actual knowledge that the CIA agent's employment was classified at the time of the leak.To prove that, you need to be able to prove how the person found out about the fact of CIA employment. In the case of Armitage, it was clear that he didn't know; he found out from a document that said nothing about Plame's covert status. In the case of Libby, it was less clear what he knew, but Fitzgerald nonetheless concluded that he couldn't prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.The real issue is what Cheney knew and when he knew it. Libby's lies were intentionally designed to keep Fitzgerald from getting a closer look at Cheney and determining what role Cheney had in the leak campaign and whether he knew Plame was covert. That's why the obstruction was a big deal. That's why no one was charged; the IIPA requires that you prove knowledge and Fitzgerald couldn't."

Note that the abbreviation 'IIPA' used by this knowledgeable source strongly suggests that I got wrong the name of the law that Fitgerald was initially charged to investigate potential violations of.

Standing Eagle