Political Football

“A lie told often enough becomes truth” – Vladimir Lenin.

Full article

… In Iowa to promote the presidential candidacy of his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. Clinton was asked by a radio host, David Yepsen, “You had some controversial pardons during your presidency; what’s your reaction to what President Bush did?”

“Yeah, but I think the facts were different,” Mr. Clinton said. “I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted. You’ve got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle.”

“It’s wrong to out that C.I.A. agent and wrong to try to cover it up,” Mr. Clinton added. “And no one was ever fired from the White House for doing it.” …

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the C.I.A. agent was not outed by Libby or anyone at the White House, so no one should be fired from the WH for “doing it”.

For more ACCURATE information read Ben Stein’s column from this week.

… At the trial, the prosecutor had conceded that there was no underlying crime and that Libby had not “outed” anyone. But then in the sentencing phase the prosecutor completely falsified himself and claimed Libby had done serious national security damage — by naming an employee of the CIA who was not covert and not overseas, contrary to his statements at trial. …

or Christopher Hitchen’s Slate column last month:

Before savoring the full absurdity of the thing, please purge your mind of any preconceptions or confusions.

• Mr. Libby was not charged with breaking the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
• Nobody was ever charged with breaking that law, designed to shield the names of covert agents. Indeed, the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, determined that the law had not been broken in the first place.
• The identity of the person who disclosed the name of Valerie Plame to Robert Novak—his name is Richard Armitage, incidentally—was known to those investigating the non-illegal leak before the full-dress inquiry began to grind its way through the system, incidentally imprisoning one reporter and consuming thousands of man hours of government time (and in time of war, at that).
• The call to Russert was not about Plame in any case; it was a complaint from the vice president’s office about Chris Matthews, who was felt by some to have been overstressing the Jewish names associated with the removal of Saddam Hussein. Russert was called in his capacity as bureau chief; any chitchat about Wilson and Plame was secondary.
• The call was made after Robert Novak had put his fateful column (generated by Richard Armitage) on the wire, and after he had mentioned Plame’s identity to Karl Rove.

Does it not seem extraordinary that a man can be prosecuted, and now be condemned to a long term of imprisonment, because of an alleged minor inconsistency of testimony in a case where it is admitted that there was no crime and no victim?

I will be very suprised if this verdict is not overturned on appeal.

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