Also, you just generally suck:
Alexandria, Va.: Dear Sir: As I see it, the investigation was started by the CIA (hardly a hotbed of Michael Moore liberalism) who asked the Department of Justice to look into the leak. Ashcroft (not exactly a Naderite) recused himself and put Fitzgerald (a Republican-appointed DA) in charge of the investigation. Libby was caught lying to a grand jury and found guilty after having the finest lawyers in the country (paid for by a Republican cadre of well-wishers) and was given a tough sentence by a Republican-appointed judge. In short, not a Democrat was involved in this -- and yet you have the temerity to suggest it was political. I just do not get it. Can you please explain? Your articles do not, so please don't ask me to go back and read them.
Richard Cohen: Well, if you'll excuse my temerity, the genesis of the investigation had to do with the naming of Valerie Plame in Robert Novak's column. But that didn't come from Scooter Libby, and the pressure for the appointment of a special counsel came from a whole lot of liberals who didn't trust the administration to investigate itself. The thinking was that this was an attempt by a pro-war member of the administration to tarnish a war critic who argued against the war in the New York Times. Libby was convicted of lying to a grand jury, and I don't excuse that, and I don't excuse the war either, but the fact is that he didn't commit the original crime. It's a hefty sentence, the end of a career, and there's no underlying crime -- as there wasn't with Bill Clinton. I don't like prosecutors going after someone who didn't commit the original crime. They have too much power; they can go after almost anybody.
Gee, this whole Libby thing got started because of a bunch of partisan liberals irrationally didn't trust the Bush administration to investigate itself. That's where the wheels fell off. That's when this thing became partisan.
Plame's identity was compromised on July 14, 2003. The people responsible for this very serious possible violation of Federal law were, among possibly others, White House Political Director Karl Rove, the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the Chief of Staff to the Vice President Scooter Libby, and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney.
All of these people either spoke directly to reporters, identifying Plame as being in the employ of the CIA, or authorized others to do so.
Despite the fact that Plame was a covert operative of the CIA who's job was to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and her cover had been blown--damaging intelligence operations around the world and endangering the lives of valuable intelligence assets--the White House did nothing until September of 2003.
When partisans began irrationally insisting the White House investigate itself.
Did I say nothing? No, that's not quite true. The White House emphatically denied that Karl Rove or the Vice President's office had anything to do with leaking Plame's identity.
"There's been nothing, absolutely nothing brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president's office as well," McClellan said.
In particular, McClellan said it was "ridiculous'' to suggest that Karl Rove, the president's top political operative, was involved, as Wilson once charged. "He wasn't involved," McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."
Three months after the outing of a covert CIA agent, the White House was saying on Tee Vee that the Vice President's office had nothing to do leaking Plame's identity, when, in fact, it did.
Seven months after the outing of a covert CIA agent, the Preznit himself was saying that he welcomed the investigation and that he, more than anyone, wanted to know if his own administration was involved in leaking Plame's identity and, beyond that, if anyone in his administration was responsible they would be "taken care of".
I don't really know what Bush meant by that. But, as far as I know, to date, neither Libby, nor Cheney, nor Armitage, nor Rove has been "taken care of" by Bush.
He hasn't done a goddammed thing to any of them.
And this is after we know they were all involved.
But for some reason, Richard Cohen thinks it was out of control partisan politics for "liberals" to doubt that the White House would investigate itself. Richard Cohen seems to still think it was partisan politics for "liberals" to insist that an independent prosecutor be named to investigate something the White House clearly was not investigating.
If Richard Cohen should be upset at anyone, he should be pissed off at Bush. Bush could have nipped this whole thing in the bud by walking across the hall, firing his Vice President, his Vice President's Chief of Staff, and his Political Director, and then Bush could have told them that, on their way out of Washington, please stop by State and drop off this pink slip for Armitage.
But Bush didn't do that. Instead, he pretended that he would be shocked--shocked, I say!--if someone within his administration was involved in such tawdry, purely political mischief. And, even after all of these people have been revealed to have been involved in leaking Plame's identity, and the Bush administration still has not "taken care of" any of them, Cohen still seems to think the pressure to appoint an independent prosecutor was partisan.
Rather than common fucking sense.
As for the, you know, it was just like Clinton--there was no underlying crime bullshit: Clinton lied about a consensual sexual relationship. Which is not illegal. Covering it up, so that investigators can never discover whether a consensual sexual relationship occurred is not a crime. No more than getting on the witness stand and lying about your age is a crime.
Fitzgerald never said there was an underlying crime. What he did say was that Libby's repeated and intentional lying to Federal investigators and the Grand Jury made it impossible to determine whether a very serious crime had been committed.
It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged…
In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us…
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view…
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make…
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime…
But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.
Because Scooter Libby repeatedly and purposefully lied to federal investigators and a grand jury, the American people will never know the truth about whether a very, very serious crime was committed.
And Richard Cohen somehow believes that is pretty much the same as Bill Clinton telling lies, which might have prevented the American people from ever knowing the truth about a very, very legal act.
Somehow Richard Cohen is so stupid that he believes that a person has to have actually committed the underlying crime to be convicted of covering it up.
Finally, can we please murder the independent prosecutor comparisons with Clinton?
With Clinton, Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske, a Republican, as independent prosecutor to investigate Whitewater. When Fiske, a Republican, wasn't independent enough to investigate a Democratic President--i.e., Fiske said Whitewater was bullshit--Republicans had Fiske replaced with Republican Kenneth Starr, a Clinton hating, Federalist Society right wing kook.
With Libby, the Bush CIA made a complaint to the Bush Justice Department, which named a Bush appointed Republican United States Attorney as the independent prosecutor, who eventually tried the case before a Bush appointed Republican United States District Judge.
So, no, it's not just like with Clinton.
And when Bush pardons Libby, it won't be anything like when Clinton pardoned people who were contributors to the Democratic party.
It'll be a noble thing. Another sign of Bush's great and good loyalty.
As opposed to Clinton's grotesque and flagrant corruption.
If the Washington Post won't take away Cohen's crayons, they should at least rename his column: "I'm Mister Magoo; Who the Hell Are You?"
Somedays all I can rationalize doing is pounding my head against the wall at all the absolutely willful ignorance and stupidity of the so-called media stars. Cohen is apparently of the opinion that if he stops his foot hard enough and long enough, then everyone will believe him.
Posted by: Kit E | June 21, 2007 at 06:53 PM