Today’s Topic: Libby Doesn’t Deserve a Pardon
If Martha Stewart could be convicted and sent to prison for lying to the FBI and obstructing justice, then the fact is that Scooter Libby deserves to fall to the same fate.
The problem isn’t that Scooter was inappropriately targeted for prosecution, but the reverse is true. Scooter Libby was indicted and convicted because he chose to hide facts necessary to find out the truth about the outing of a NOC CIA agent, period. By his own choice, as I’d mentioned before his trial, Scooter fell upon his own sword to cover for his bosses. And politically it has the advantage of killing any further investigation because the only avenue from Scooter to anyone higher up is a closed avenue. If Scooter is willing to lie to protect Vice President Cheney then indeed he has done so.
The logic, as Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald outlined it in his announcement of Scooter’s indictment, stands to reason. If lies and deceit are the outcome of the testimony, then the possibility of finding out the truth is obstructed. This is why there is an obstruction of justice law on the books. If you can prove that one is lying to cover their tracks, and you suspect that those tracks lead back to a higher authority, then in fact we are talking about obstruction of justice.
The proof is in Dick Cheney’s own handwriting, suggesting that "the Pres", quickly struck out and negated by other terminology, was the person requesting action on an in-actionable situation. To try to institute a political character assassination against a vocal opponent by means of such extremes as to actually name a CIA NOC is unconscionable, and requires the extreme legal remedies to guarantee that freedom of speech reigns true.
For you see, freedom of speech isn’t limited to the individual, but gathered up unto the whole so that true freedom may reign without suppression.
Idealistic, I know. For if indeed we could achieve the concept of freedom of speech for all Americans then we truly would be free and those that would infringe on this right would be held accountable.
Ah, but there is a problem even if freedom of speech were a truly noble exercise of one’s rights, for there would always be those willing to fall upon their own swords in order to protect others. History shows this to be true, and until we, as a people, can hold individual actions to a higher ideal than those presented by day to day politics, then we, as Americans, cannot really regard ourselves as free.
It makes no difference whether we can speak our minds as most would assume that freedom of speech represents. What makes the difference is if those privy to certain knowledge have the ability to determine right from wrong and speak their minds without fear of reprisal.
A couple of years ago I wrote about how the concept of freedom of speech isn’t guaranteed by the Constitution, but rather by those that adhere to the concepts of the Constitution. Therefore, if you try to stand in the public square and get shouted down for your views then you have no observable freedom of speech. In other words, no one actually has the right to freedom of speech unless those around you give you the right to free speech.
There is a conundrum here in that I can try to say what I wish to say, but those that don’t wish to listen can shout me down, and yet I actually still have freedom of speech. But there’s another avenue whereby freedom of speech doesn’t hold true and that is within environments like this administration whereby secrets are the order of the day and lies have to be told about those secrets. And some of those lies can be harmful and purposely aimed at those expressing their freedom of speech rights. Again, freedom of speech is the right to speak your mind without fear of reprisal.
Once people can lie about one thing it is true that they can lie about another and then it comes down to the fact that one cannot trust the other as to whether truth or lies are being told.
This is the conundrum that George W. Bush faces now. There is nothing this man can say that can be taken to be the truth because he has foisted lie after lie upon us. Even if he tells the truth there is nothing that says any particular American will believe him because he has told lies enough to guarantee that anyone will believe him all the time. He has required others to lie about this administration’s efforts and has gone to extraordinary efforts to cover his tracks as he continues to tell new lies to cover the old.
It is, in fact, amazing to me that a full 30% of Americans still believe a man that lies as easily as he dons a Navy flight suit as if he were a competent Navy flier. Thank God that George W. Bush never fought in Viet Nam. I’m pretty certain that at least 100 men came home alive and whole because this idiot didn’t get command of anything.
But the real problem lies in just what Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald told us in his indictment announcement. His reasoning for prosecuting Scooter Libby was because Scooter, by lying, was indeed obstructing justice for the American people who could not get at the truth. This one man has the truth about what lies behind the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson, but if he’s going to lie about it, we will never have the facts necessary to carry forward more investigation nor bring these investigations to a true close.
So the deed is done and true accountability for illegal actions by this administration may never come to light as long as Libby is willing to be impaled upon his sword.
Now I don’t care about how the Republican spin machine suggests that Scooter deserves a pardon and that he didn’t do anything more wrong than have a faulty memory (one suggestion which belies the other). Well, the pardon inherently holds the taint of guilt, and a man with a faulty memory wouldn’t be the Chief of Staff for the most powerful Vice President in American history if he weren’t firing on all cylinders. It is not possible. It is not just improbable, it is not possible.
And yet supposedly the republican spin machine would have us think that such a man as Dick Cheney would allow a man with a faulty memory to run the day to day concerns of the Office of the Vice President. Just the thought of it doesn’t even make sense even with testimony to the contrary.
I’m not saying that this administration hasn’t placed incompetent people in positions of power throughout the differing agencies, for it is painfully obvious that they have. But it is a little hard to accept a scenario where scheduled meetings with the Vice President were forgotten, or arrangement for trips to the CIA to push for different intelligence were botched due to a faulty memory, etc., and that these daily lapses of memory would be acceptable to a megalomaniac such as Dick Cheney.
So you see that if Dick Cheney started a vendetta against Ambassador Joe Wilson for his repudiating the administration’s use of faulty information and leading the United States people into a false reasoning for war, then without Scooter Libby’s truthful testimony there is no case against Dick Cheney or George Bush.
If the right wing can continue to hourly denounce this verdict then the end result is even worse than missing an opportunity for holding those responsible for breaking the law accountable. For the end result will be the continued misleading of the American people and the undermining of the people’s right to know who the lawbreakers are.
No, Scooter Libby does not deserve a pardon, for such an act by President George W. Bush would scuttle any leverage Patrick Fitzgerald currently has over Libby to encourage his truthful and complete testimony, regardless of where that testimony leads. Without such testimony this administration will have again taken down the rights of the people a notch or two, and there aren’t but so many notches left to us.
If Scooter Libby does receive a pardon, even forgetting that accepting one is an admission of guilt, then there can only be one reasonable point of view on such an action. And that view is that this President has something to hide in the matter.
Perhaps it is only plain to me, but it appears that Bush’s authorization for Cheney’s declassification of the "in question" portions of the National Intelligence Estimate represents Presidential foreknowledge of the process to discredit Joe Wilson. This means that the President is just as involved in outing a secret CIA agent, which is clearly against the law.
And it might be added that this law, by the way, was instituted by this President’s father and signed into law by the same. And so we have just one more observable abuse of power by the Bush/Cheney administration and I. "Scooter" Libby should be held accountable for his part in the abuses.
If any feel that this is reaching beyond the realm of justice then just remember that if a person can lie to you about one thing, they can, and probably will, lie to you about anything.
5:14:12 AM 
|
