As I said, I don't care about Scooter Libby ( other than I think his name is to be treasured. ) I just think the reason people care passionately about this are emotional and political and have nothing to do with the merits of the case. Especially the 'outrage' over the 'outing' of poor ms Pflame by people who have no problem with the release of incredibly sensitive classified information and who cheered Phillip Agee when he got a lot of good people killed because he needed to 'out' overseas actual working covert field people - not analysts and beltway warriors but the kind of people who get dead and thrown out of moving cars in Athens and Beirut because a journalist decides 'the public has a right to know'.


If you are hard nosed and say Libby and Armatige and Berger ( and Bush for this pardon and Clinton for every pardon he sold ) should all be sent to Dry Tortuga ( where you are sent when your name is Mudd ) I can live with that.

But the arguments being made are political ones and I don't like prosecution used as a political tool. I didn't like it when they did it to the Clintons and I don't like it now.

As soon as I hear the words "hold hearings" I gag. Right up their with "fact finding mission"



>Armitage was a leaker as was Libby. When Armitage realized he had leaked, he contacted the prosecutor. Along with the "conversations" that Libby made up out of whole cloth, he also had real conversations with everyone and their brother about Plame's employment. He had conversations with Chaney about Plame's employment and they had discussed what could be shared with the press. Chaney had first written notes on Wilson's OpEd that were the genesis of the talking points put out by the VP's office. The first notes included the fact that Wilson's wife was CIA. The special prosecutor said she was covert. The CIA (not Michael Moore or some San Francisco liberals) refered the case to the DOJ to investigate. The case was overwhelming. The judge was a Bush appointee. The prosecutor garnered some of the highest praise for his work at DOJ. The sentence was very much in line with similar convictions. The knee jerk reactions IMHO are those that look to other cases as though that are the governing
>forces for this case, instead of looking at the merits of this case. And if I am not mistaken, the DOJ had a go with Berger. And Clinton has his day too, ala impeachment.
>
>
>>I don't really care much about Scooter, but I think the prosecution was blatantly political. Not the kind of crime to put somebody in jail for. Much the way I felt about Whitewater etc. Jails are for people who are violent and a danger to others.
>>
>>I brought up Sandy Berger since his behavior was so blatantly criminal - no "I can't recall" grey areas here - smuggled classified documents out of archives and destroyed evidence. That is traditionally the kind of thing you do go to jail for, but I wouldn't see any point in jailing him either. I just don't like to see political jackals throwing their opponents in prison.
>>
>>Joe Wilson blatantly lied publicly about a lot of things. Should he go to jail?
>>
>>How about Clinton? His lies to a grand jury were easily as venal as Scooters. Jail him?
>>
>>Of course not.
>>
>>I will at least credit Bush for only commuting the jail time and letting the rest stand. Libby did something wrong, fine. But nobody named "Scooter" should be sent to jail - or even my old high school <g> It just wouldn't be pretty.
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/02/libby.sentence/index.html
>>>>
>>>>Yeah, heck of a thing when somebody will use their power to commute the sentence of a friend. Better the pardons should happen on the last day of office and be paid for in cash ... ( no, I didn't even mention Mark Rich ...)
>>>>
>>>>If Scooter Libby deserves 30 months in prison, Sandy Berger should be in Pelican Bay. <s>
>>>
>>>
>>>I know there will be plenty of nakedly partisan reaction but have to say I am disappointed to hear it from you. Is Libby's sentence being commuted OK because someone else's was worse? It still stinks. This was a giant upraised finger to the judicial system and to the jury that convicted him. (Even though they sympathized with him for being the fall guy). Which, of course, is entirely in character for an administration that thinks it is answerable to no one.