{"id":400,"date":"2018-08-04T16:27:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T23:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=400"},"modified":"2024-05-06T22:35:37","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T05:35:37","slug":"forget-scooter-libby-2007","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/forget-scooter-libby-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Scooter Libby (2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Every once in a while the news media would get all a-flutter over some story that I thought wasn\u2019t a story at all. One of these was about President George W. Bush commuting the sentence of I. Lewis Libby, known in D.C. as \u201cScooter\u201d Libby. I thought it was a dumb story and dumb to be fascinated by it.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My column ran in the Seattle Times on July 11, 2007.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All this fascination with \u201cScooter\u201d Libby leaves me bored. Several of my colleagues say the Libby story is big, big, big, and obviously lots of editors agree with them.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The July 3\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/i>devoted much of the front page and a full inside page to Bush commuting Libby\u2019s sentence. In the past year, the\u00a0Seattle Times\u00a0<\/i>has run 88 stories with the words \u201cScooter Libby\u201d and several more with his official name, I. Lewis Libby.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I tried to explain the Libby business to a person who had not been following it \u2014 in other words, to a normal American. It was difficult. The attitude was:\u00a0Why do I need to know this?<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Maybe you don\u2019t. But here is the gist of it:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the reasons given for attacking Iraq was a report that Iraqi agents had been trying to buy uranium soils in the African state of Niger. To check this out, the CIA sent a former diplomat, Joseph Wilson, to Niger. He determined the Iraqis had not been there. Bush, however, told the world otherwise, and we went to war.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wilson was angry about that, and started to circulate his story, and in July 2003 told it on the op-ed page of the\u00a0New York Times.\u00a0<\/i>Meanwhile, White House people were whispering to reporters that Wilson\u2019s wife was in the CIA. It looked as if they were trying to punish Wilson, who was retired, by blowing the cover on his wife, who was still working.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some said it showed just how nasty the Bush people were. It is also a federal crime to blow the cover of a CIA agent, a law that might apply in this case.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A special prosecutor was hired. He found no conspiracy to punish Wilson. He did find several leakers, including Bush adviser Karl Rove, but he didn\u2019t file charges against any of them for leaking. He prosecuted only Libby, Dick Cheney\u2019s chief of staff \u2014 for\u00a0lying\u00a0<\/i>about leaking.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lying is a kind of backstop offense. Half a century ago, Alger Hiss was convicted of lying under oath and sent to federal prison. Prosecutors had the goods on him for being a Soviet spy, but the statute of limitations had run out. They got him for lying, but his real crime was spying.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nailing a spy is one thing. But a leaker? Washington, D.C., is full of leakers. Are we to let off Karl Rove and treat Libby as a big, national story? Why? Here are the answers I am given:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s a government official. He lied. Isn\u2019t that enough?<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0No, it isn\u2019t. We teach our kids that all lies are wrong, because lying undermines the parent-child relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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But government is not our parent. Sometimes we lie to it, to cover up things that are none of its business. Sometimes it lies to us.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky. In 1960 Eisenhower lied about Francis Gary Powers, the spy pilot. In the election of 1940, FDR lied about his intention to never, never, never send our boys into foreign wars.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To judge a lie, ask what it accomplishes. Maybe Libby\u2019s lie deserves punishment, but it\u2019s small potatoes.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s a crime to lie to government investigators, or under oath<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Getting a person to lie is a prosecutor\u2019s trick. That\u2019s how the feds nailed Martha Stewart, whom they accused of a stock transaction that victimized investors. Her interrogators didn\u2019t have to prove she had committed a crime against investors; her interrogators questioned her until she committed a \u201ccrime\u201d against\u00a0them<\/i>. I can\u2019t get excited about such \u201ccrimes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But the Libby case tells us how we got into the war<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not really. The liberals who insist on this should take the word of the\u00a0Washington Post<\/i>, which editorialized that the case tells \u201cnothing about the war in Iraq.\u201d It also tells nothing about the Bush administration we didn\u2019t already know.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dear liberals: If you want to talk about the war, hitch up your pants and\u00a0talk about the war<\/i>. In Iraq, people are being killed, crippled, widowed and orphaned. Forget \u201cScooter\u201d Libby.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Copyright \u00a9 2007 The Seattle Times Company<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>This column brought enraged replies from liberals. One complained that I had not used the words \u201cperjury\u201d or \u201cobstruction of justice,\u201d which is what Libby was convicted of. I replied that I had purposely not used those words because I was writing about the moral essence of the matter, not the legality of it. Given that there was very little moral substance to the charge, the legality didn\u2019t interest me. Well, I didn\u2019t convince him.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Bush commuted Libby\u2019s 30-month prison sentence but did not pardon him. In 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.\u201d Libby still had to pay a $250,000 fine. \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Every once in a while the news media would get all a-flutter over some story that I thought wasn\u2019t a story at all. One of these was about President George W. Bush commuting the sentence of I. Lewis Libby, known in D.C. as \u201cScooter\u201d Libby. I thought it was a dumb story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-400","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/400\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}