Story Time with E: ¡Viva Scooter Libre!
Posted by Enrique on 07.05.2007
Scooter Libby – lawyer, novelist, erstwhile chief of staff to the VPOTUS, convicted felon, philanthropist. This week Dubya made headlines by commuting Libby’s perjury sentence, throwing lefties everywhere into an apoplexy of indignation. But what exactly did Libby do wrong? Oddly enough, not a damn thing…
The big news this week is that Britain has been besieged once again by Islamist reactionaries, who planted car bombs in downtown London, and drove a flaming car into the front door of Glasgow's airport. Thankfully, the bombs didn't go off, and the attempted airport suicide-bomb was less than spectacular. Again, we must bear witness to this portent of the horrible future – a future defined by the epic struggle between civilization and barbarism, between secular democracy and theocratic fascism, between Western liberalism and Islamist nihilism. It will be a conflict that consumes innumerable innocent lives, and it will force us to confront the darkest depths of our post-modern soul.
But who the hell wants to talk about that boring stuff? Did you hear about this Scooter Libby shit?
The story so far…
We all think we know the truth behind this Libby business. And as usual, we're all a bunch of pig-ignorant buffoons. We don't have any idea what the hell this Libby case was all about. We have this vague notion that Libby jeopardized some CIA chick's life by leaking her name to Bob Novak. We may have heard that this gal's name is Valerie Plame, and that she has this very patriotic husband named Joe Wilson who bravely exposed Dick Cheney's disingenuous arguments in favor of the Iraq War, only to have his wife's CIA cover blown in retaliation. And we think we read something in the papers about this Scooter Libby fellow being convicted for leaking Plame's name, and that he was sentenced to 30 months in the federal pokey for his crimes. And you wouldn't believe what we heard happened this week – that scumbag Bush pardoned Libby! We thought to ourselves, "I guess we shouldn't be surprised – that Bush guy is a complete jag. Of COURSE he'd pardon the guy that tried to ruin Valerie's career. Damn that Bush."
But once we thought about it for a while, and after we had a few beers, it dawned on us that we hadn't been paying very close attention to this Scooter Libby thing. So we looked on the internet and tried to figure out exactly what was up with this Scooter guy. Whoa! Did you know that Scooter Libby wrote a novel? I had no idea! That's kind of cool. This book is called The Apprentice, it's set in Japan at the turn of the 20th century, and it features bestiality, pedophilia, and rape. No shit. Don't trust me, trust USA Today. Now available in paperback! And I thought that Republicans were so uptight…
More famously, Libby was Dick Cheney's chief of staff when he was indicted in the Plame leak investigation led by independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. The Libby case has been going on since late 2005, and it's a treasure trove of tedious legal intrigue. Luckily, my crack research staff was up to the task of sifting through two years worth of political drama, and they've come up with some top-drawer dirt. It may not surprise you to learn that the actual facts of the Libby case conflict with the Conventional Wisdom that we've been force-fed by the typically irresponsible pundit class. Here are some of the highly significant details of the Libby case of which you've been deprived, offered for your consideration in handy list form:
The entire purpose of Fitzgerald's investigation was to uncover who leaked Plame's name, under the theory that the leaker had violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Fitzgerald ended up indicting Libby, but not for being the Plame leaker. The Plame leaker was Richard Armitage, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and noted critic of the Iraq War. It appears that Armitage thoughtlessly gave away Plame's identity during a chitchat with Novak, with no apparent intention of blowing her cover or punishing her husband for his opposition to the Bush administration. He just let it slip. What a dumbass, huh?
Don't trust me, trust the New York Times (motto - "All the news that's fit for chronicling the moral eclipse of the secular left!"):
Mr. Fitzgerald's decision to prolong the inquiry once he took over as special prosecutor in December 2003 had significant political and legal consequences. The inquiry seriously embarrassed and distracted the Bush White House for nearly two years and resulted in five felony charges against Mr. Libby, even as Mr. Fitzgerald decided not to charge Mr. Armitage or anyone else with crimes related to the leak itself.
Repeat: Fitzgerald knew that Scooter wasn't guilty of the crime that he had been tasked with investigating. And yet he pursued his investigation until he was able to bring charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Now, if you're clever, you're thinking "Aren't perjury and making false statements the same thing?" Technically no, but essentially yes, they are the same thing (one happens under oath, the other doesn't). But when you consider these five charges, none of which involve the actual leak, it's almost as if Fitzgerald was trying to trump up any charge he could against Libby to salvage an investigation that failed in its stated purpose…
Patrick Fitzgerald clearly has some nuanced views about prosecutorial discretion – I imagine Mike Nifong gets a hard-on when he reads about the kind of shit that Fitzgerald has pulled. This is the reason that Libby was convicted: He had a different recollection of a conversation than Tim Russert did. Libby tried to use the "I forgot" line as his defense. And if you're a reasonable person, that makes a certain degree of sense. Hell, I can barely remember what I did at work TODAY. Off the top of my head, I talked to at least half a dozen people over the phone, and I couldn't give you the exact wording on any of those conversations. And my job is cake – can you imagine how many people you talk to on the phone if you're Dick Cheney's poodle? But apparently the penalty these days for forgetting a conversation is 30 months in federal prison. Funny that.
From his media coverage, you'd think this Wilson character was Joan of Fucking Arc. If you know anything about Joe Wilson, it's that he's all about Speaking Truth to Power™ - he's a brave man willing to risk his family to oppose the Bush administration and its treacherous lies. And the reason you know this is because a credulous MainStream Media (sans Fox News, natch) has anointed Wilson with Unambiguous Credibility. What the MSM hasn't told you is that Joe Wilson is full of shit. His famous NYT op-ed – in which he claimed Bush lied about Saddam's pursuit of uranium in Niger – has been thoroughly scrutinized and discredited. Wilson lied about his wife's involvement in his diplomatic mission to Niger. Wilson also lied about the contents of his report on Saddam's attempts to purchase uranium from Niger. But the MSM ignores these inconsistencies, because they don't serve the great "Bush Lied About WMD" meme that they've staked their ideological fortunes on.
Technically speaking, of course. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence. Scooter still faces a $250,000 fine and has a felony conviction on his record. According to the Obamas, Pelosis, Hillarys, and Olbermanns of the world, it's a hopeless miscarriage of justice that Libby won't be sent to prison for his faulty memory. And you thought lefties cared about civil liberties? Frankly, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around why Libby didn't receive a full pardon, since he didn't actually do anything wrong. I hope that Bush has the good sense to grant Libby a full pardon before the end of his term, but hoping for Bush to display good sense is like hoping for Islamists to stop hating women and Jews.
And speaking of Islamists, let's close this week by sharing a moment of schadenfreude with this photo of the crispy failed suicide-bomber from Glasgow.
A screenshot from the new video game, Grand Theft Auto: Scottish Jihad
Awwww, that doesn't hurt, does it? Hahahaha. Seriously, is there any better way to celebrate this patriotic July 4th week than by having a laugh at the pain of this douchenozzle? It must drive Allah up the wall that He can't get any competent help these days. Too bad for this cretin that God only hands out 72 virgins for suicide bombers who actually follow through on the "suicide" part. But instead, this pathetic almost-martyr is looking forward to a few agonizing weeks in an NHS burn unit, enduring tedious reconstructive surgery (there's a waiting list for that, incidentally) before he's tried and sent to prison for the rest of his life. I wonder if Rosie O'Donnell could possibly muster as much contempt for this terrorist wannabe as she does for Scooter Libby. I can't imagine.
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