Beg pardon?

The possibility that President George W. Bush will pardon I. Liar Libby has become a topic of conversation, from the cable talk shows to internet discussion sites, as the nation waits for the jury to return its verdict. Libby’s supporters are spreading the rumor that Bush will grant the pardon, as part of their perception management campaign. Of course, these are the same folks who insist that Plame was not covert, and a variety of other lies. We have no more reason to believe anything they say, than we have reason to believe VP Cheney when he tells us that things are going well in Iraq.

At this point, we can only speculate on the likelihood of a pardon after Libby is convicted. There are a number of reasons that support the idea that Bush will save Scooter; there are also a number of reasons to think that Bush will not interfere with the outcome of the case. Let’s take a few minutes to look at both possibilities.

First, it is important to look at recent history, which provides some interesting examples for our consideration. The first example is the Watergate scandal. We know that President Ford granted Richard Nixon a pardon, saving the ex-president from the legal consequences for his role in the series of crimes that brought down his administration.

Equally important, though often overlooked in the current discussions, is how Nixon knew his aides were suggesting that those who were either facing or experiencing incarceration would be pardoned. "The Presidential Transcripts" (Washington Post; Dell Books; 1974) contains fascinating discussions between Nixon and his staff, where they consider pardons in terms of rewarding loyalty vs protecting Nixon. In the end, those who believed they would be pardoned ended up behind bars.

The second example comes from the Iran-Contra scandals. Unlike the first example, in this case, President Bush the Elder granted pardons to a number of his associates, and derailed the justice system’s efforts to provide consequences for those who had participated in serious crimes. Many progressive democrats point to this example to support their belief that Bush2 will pardon Scooter.

A third example, which is important in ways that differ from the first two, Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. This took place in the final days of the Clinton administration. It was a slimy episode, and it is no coincidence that Scooter Libby was Rich’s attorney.

All three of these examples are worth considering as we explore some of the possibilities in the Libby case. Now let’s look first at reasons Bush might pardon Libby, and then at some reasons he might not.

Reasons for a pardon:

Bush may believe that a pardon would help to protect his administration. Having Libby convicted of these serious charges is damaging to the Bush administration, and Bush may feel he can lessen the damage with a pardon.

Dick Cheney wants Scooter pardoned, and the vice president is running the show.

The Libby Support Group, which has been lobbying for a pardon, pulls the puppet strings, politically and financially.

Bush values "loyalty." And he will be moved to tears – much like Teddy Wells – by Scooter’s dog-like loyalty to Dick Cheney.

Bush has no problem with lying. We know he has told more lies than Carter has pills. Included among these lies was his promise to "take the appropriate action" if anyone in his administration were caught in the Plame investigation. A pardon is this liar’s idea of the appropriate action.

Power. President Bush is correctly viewed as a man who is carried away with the sense of power that the presidency has provided for him. He will enjoy proving that he, rather than the judicial system, has the "ultimate power."

The weasel factor. Like the two presidents before him, he will wait until the last days of his administration, and use them as cover for a pardon.

Now, let’s look at some of the reasons President Bush might not grant Scooter Libby a pardon:

Timing. If Bush wanted to avoid the damage to his presidency, he would have pardoned Libby in October, 2005.

Timing, part two. The Libby Support Group had lobbied Bush for a holiday pardon in 2006. That would have saved the administration from the damage the trial has done. But the pardon didn’t happen.

The Plame scandal created a serious conflict between the Office of the President, and the Office of the Vice President. This isn’t something that Teddy Wells made up for his opening statement to the jury – it is something that Joseph Wilson details in his book (see page 444).

Bush is intent upon being different than his father. This is something that has been clear in many of the decisions that he has made throughout his presidency. He has noted that he looks to a "different Father" for help in his decision-making. And Bush clearly views life in the punitive sense of the "Father" from the Old Testament, rather than one who pardons sins.

Bush really enjoys watching others suffer. For but one example, on the day that Scott McClellan "retired," when he and Bush walked out on the lawn to talk to reporters, Bush was trying not to grin. He could not stop from showing his pleasure in his friend’s pain when Scott’s voice cracked, and he almost cried in front of the cameras.

Bush would like to blame others for his mistakes. He lacks the capacity to sincerely admit that he has done anything wrong in his life. Scooter’s conviction and incarceration will allow Bush to make clear that "the buck stops in the OVP."

On page 232 of Isikoff & Corn’s book "Hubris," they quote an angry president: " ‘Oh, yeah, just like the WMD we found,’ Bush snapped…" He wants to distance himself from the yellow cake lies; this is evidenced by Ari Fleischer’s telling reporters that the infamous 16 words didn’t meet the standard for being included in a presidential speech. Pardoning Scooter would be viewed as embracing the yellow cake lies.

Mr. Fitzgerald will offer a deal to Libby, through Teddy Wells, after the jury returns its verdict, but before sentencing. The president would not attempt to interfere at that point. There are numerous people around Libby who are encouraging him to stop protecting Cheney. It’s one thing for Scooter to be a tough guy when incarceration is a possibility, in the distant future; it’s entirely different when it stares him in the face, and he considers the toll it imposes on his family.

Bush does not wish to have a confrontation with Congress on the Plame scandal. On November 8, 2005, the Democratic Leadership from the Senate sent Bush a letter requesting that he not grant a pardon to Libby or anyone else who might be charged in the scandal. Bush does not have the same advantages in the House and Senate that he had in 2005. A Congressional investigation would uncover significant evidence that would tarnish VP Cheney, and possibly Bush himself. That evidence includes documents that Mr. Fitzgerald has from the OVP, which have Cheney’s notes on them – these were, in large part, why Cheney did not want to take the witness stand.

President Bush tends to think in rigid terms. He views the world in black and white. He has already complimented Mr. Fitzgerald, and is not likely to take a step that indicates those in his administration are above the law.

At this point, an interesting case can be made to support people’s belief that Bush will, or will not, grant Convict Libby a presidential pardon. I do not think that Bush will pardon Libby. However, nothing surprises me these days.

Commander Coxey's Army

"The Constitution of the United States guarantees to all citizens the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, and furthermore declares that the right of free speech shall not be abridged." – Jacob S. Coxey; May 1, 1944; Washington, DC.

When we were children, my father would tell my siblings and I stories that he had learned in his childhood. His father had been one of the immigrants from Ireland in the 1870s. Others from the Old Sod had come to the New York City area, and found work on the canals and then the railroads in upstate New York. My father’s education included learning from the older generations. He told me about their experiences as they looked to better their lives by hard work, by joining unions, and by educating their children.

They knew that not everything of value could be found in the text books in their schools, and so many of the most important lessons were those taught around the table during the evening meal. This is one of those lessons that was handed down to me, and that I have told to my own children. It is the true story of when Coxey’s Army invaded Washington, DC in 1894.

There are a few history books that have information on Commander Coxey (also called General Coxey in some accounts). Years ago, I published a book on the political influence of the railroad unions that included some stories about Coxey’s march. What he attempted in the 1890s was considered a failure at the time, but his dreams in part became reality under FDR, and found a voice when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in another March on Washington.

The United States, and indeed much of western Europe, suffered from economic depressions in the last quarter of the 19th century. In the southeast, the agrarian economy was not making ends meet. Industries in the northeast were stagnating, and the self-sufficient family farms were being replaced by the dairy industry. And there was a drain on the national economy because of the robber-barons’ speculation in the west.

Jacob Sechler Coxey on Easter Sunday in 1854. He had been educated in public school in Danville, PA, until the age of 15. He had been married at least twice, and worked in a steel mill, until he decided to seek a fortune elsewhere. He moved to Massillon, Ohio, and bought a stone quarry. This quarry produced the quality of silica used in glass and steel production, and Coxey was able to make a good living. (If he had been Irish, he would have been what my father called a "boomer" – a young man who thought his hometown was boring, and traveled in search of excitement in the "boom" towns.)

Coxey bought ranches and race horses, and expanded his business interests into other areas. But he also was concerned about the well-being of his workforce. When the national economy was on a severe downslide in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Coxey began to advocate that the state and federal governments take an active role in helping working (and unemployed) Americans. This was at a time when many business "leaders" were making a fortune by the benefit of Uncle Sam’s generosity towards the ultra rich.

We are taught about the west being "won" by the 1862 Homestead Act, which granted private citizens title to a 160-acre lot for a small registration fee. But "manifest destiny" was not accomplished by pioneers in covered wagons, so much as by the obscene policies that enriched the robber barons. Between 1865 and 1900, politicians gave these "investors" about a quarter of a million square miles of land.

After Coxey was forced to lay-off 40 workers, he began to put forth plans for substantial "public works" programs. The central theme involved having the state and federal governments coordinate rural road construction programs. His plan was for the unemployed men in rural communities to construct public roads; the significance being that the privately-owned canals and railroads would lose a degree of control over the transportation systems that primarily benefited the wealthy at the expense of the working class and poor.

Grover Cleveland’s first term as president (1885-89) had influenced Coxey’s thinking. Cleveland had angered the western timber industry, cattle ranchers, and the railroad barons by exposing corrupt land deals that they had enjoyed. Also, by trying to reduce tariffs, he made enemies of eastern bankers and industrialists. Thus, he lost his party’s support.

By 1892, Cleveland showed the lack of spine and morals that was required for the democratic leaders to again support him. He had turned against many of the core values he had had just a few years earlier. Thus, he won a second term (1893-97). He rejected the concepts that Coxey and others were advocating. In his Inaugural Address, he said, "The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people."

In October, 1893, Coxey attended the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This "World’s Fair" showcased the amazing advances in technology. That same technology had been, in large part, responsible for the loss of employment that a large number of people visiting Chicago had experienced. Huge crowds of the newly unemployed flocked to Chicago to try to find jobs.

Coxey was prevented from giving a public speech advocating his public works projects by the city’s mayor, Carter Harrison. The mayor had attempted to ease the discomfort of the poor masses, by opening some public buildings for them to sleep in, and by feeding them. However, towards the end of the fair, he was murdered by a political opponent. The wealthy class used this as proof that the unemployed citizens were unstable individuals who posed a risk to public security.

Earlier during the fair, Coxey had attended a meeting of the Bimetalic League. This group had proposed that the federal government use unlimited amounts of silver for coin production. Coxey discussed his road plan with Carl Browne, Browne was despised by western business sources, because he had been a vocal supporter of Chinese immigrant laborers. He had a talent for organization of social movements that Coxey did not have, though he lacked Coxey’s understanding of economic policy. The two would join forces, and although Coxey was better known at the time, they formed an equal partnership.

The re-elected Cleveland had forced the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and attempted to revive the treasury by buying gold from "private interests." He was causing huge divisions within the democratic party, by his attempts to gain the favor of the wealthy business leaders. The country faced serious labor confrontations, perhaps most notably the coal miners’ strikes, and the Pullman Strike (also called the Debs’ strike).

The labor disputes had a huge impact on rural, upstate New York. The rural communities were served by the railroads. At this time, coal played a role in that time similar to that played by oil today. The factories in the towns and small cities required coal. Also, most of the homes in urban settings had changed from heating by wood, to burning coal.

In 1893 in Chenango County, where some of my extended family had settled, more than 1200 residents were employed in factories that lined the railroads. But as the national depression took hold, it was the factory workers who suffered first. But that suffering spread. It is important to remember that in this era, in trying to recover from the savagery of the Civil War, much of the local population was invested in a concept known as "the Protestant Work Ethic." They believed that those who were true to their faith, who worked hard and saved for a rainy day, would be rewarded. But their reward was too often the same as those in recent times who were the victims of the Ken Lays and other corporate criminals.

So when Commander Coxey from Ohio called for a national poor people’s campaign, to march on Washington, DC to demand a national works program, it caught the public’s attention. Coxey was requesting that the federal government print $500,000,000 to invest in work crews to build roads connecting the rural communities of each state. Men would be paid $1.50 per 8-hour work day. Coxey himself left Ohio with an "army" on Easter Sunday, planning to unite in Washington on May 1, 1894, with troops from some 40 other armies from across the nation.

Thus, while numerous reporters were at first interested in the March on Washington, the editors and owners of newspapers were not. When a troop from Utica, NY was planning to pass through Norwich on the way to Washington, and was asking for 200 "volunteers," the local newspaper’s editorial warned of "tramps, and no-gooders …. Dagos … anarchists, highbinders, and the worst class of criminals." Although there were an estimated 500 unemployed men in and around Norwich, the editors viewed the Coxey Army as posing the danger to the social order.

A factor in the decision to attack Coxey’s Army may have been Commander Coxey’s decision to leave the "greenback" faction of the democratic party, and to join forces with the Populist Party. This party was gaining support from southern agrarian groups, the northern labor movement, and social reformers. A number of newspapers began to attack Coxey as suffering from a Christ complex. Browne answered this by saying that that he was convinced that "the soul of Christ has been fully reincarnated in thousands of people throughout the United States today, and that accounts for the tremendous response to this call of ours to try to bring about peace and plenty to take the place of panic and poverty. To accomplish it means the Second Coming of Christ, and I believe in the prophecy that He is to come, not in any single form, but in the whole."

Coxey’s Army was a true Rainbow Coalition. It was led by a black American carrying a flag, and the troops included American Indians, women, and a wide variety of citizens. Despite the fact that the vast majority were "working class" until recently losing their jobs, the newspapers attacked them as being "tramps." The US Secretary of Agriculture was quoted as calling the marchers, "Homeless … taxless … nomadic …. If a life history of each individual in Coxey’s army could be truthfully written, it would show, no doubt, that each of them has paid out, from birth to death, more money for tobacco, whiskey, and beer, than for clothing, education, taxes and food all put together."

The combination of paid disrupters, lack of the funding needed to travel, and human nature lead to confusion within the loosely-organized national army. When Coxey’s Army entered Washington, DC, it was comprised of a fraction of the anticipated crowds of unemployed. When Commander Coxey attempted to deliver his speech, he was arrested and charged with trespass. The charge was based on a law that was intended to reduce littering, but which would be used against citizens attempting to exercise their Constitutional rights until the 1970s. Coxey would serve 20 days in jail, while his movement abandoned him.

The local Norwich paper continued to try to focus blame on the victims of the depression. Editorials warned of "Jew pack peddlers, robbers, thugs, escaped convicts (and) murderers." Itinerant farm laborers, or "tramps," became the newest threat to the local communities. The local police printed up "No TRAMPS wanted in Norwich" signs, and sentenced offenders to six months in jail. The local "civic leaders" were kind enough to let the prisoners labor for free on their farms.

"Nativism" took a few easily anticipated routes. The newspaper began attacking "local Coloreds," although from 1860 to 1894, Norwich had been a relatively progressive in dealing with a growing black population. Most of the prejudice had been aimed at the Irish and Italian populations. The local police arrested and charged a disproportionate amount of Irish young men, for free labor on elect farms. When a local Irish-American attorney protested this policy, rumors began that the local parish was being used by the dangerous Irish to house a large collection of weapons.

That Irish-American "revolution" took an unexpected course, however, when that attorney was later elected County judge. His second cousin, Harry Stack Sullivan, who lived on a rural farm outside of Norwich (where the local KKK burned crosses on St. Patrick’s Day until the early 1920s), would become famous as "America’s Psychiatrist."

In 1941, a railroad union activist named A. Philip Randolph, who had founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a massive protest in Washington, DC. As a result, FDR created the FEPC (Fair Employment Practice Committee).

During FDR’s administration, there were federal works programs, including the WPA and CCC. The WPA hired unemployed men to take part in public works programs that included a significant amount of rural road improvements. Members of my family worked along the dirt roads, using the stone walls for fill and the foundation that would help the automobile replace the trains as the primary source of transportation in the near future.

On May 1, 1944 – fifty years to the day after being arrested and incarcerated for attempting to exercise his Constitutional rights – Jacob S. Coxey returned to deliver the speech he had prepared in 1894. "We have assembled here in violation of no just laws to enjoy the privileges of every American citizen," he said. "We are under the shadow of the Capitol of this great nation, and in the presence of our national legislators are refused that dearly bought privilege, and by force of arbitrary power prevented from carrying out the desire of our hearts which is plainly granted under the great magna-carta of our national liberties. ….

"We have come here through toil and weary marches, through storms and tempests, over mountains, and amid the trials of poverty and distress, to … plead for the poor and the oppressed, that (the National Legislature) should consider the conditions of the starving unemployed of our land, and enact such laws as will give them employment, bring happier conditions to the people, and the smile of contentment to our citizens. …. In doing so, we appeal to every peace-loving citizen, every liberty-loving man or woman, every one in whose breast the fires of patriotism and love of country have not died out, to assist us in our efforts toward better laws and general benefits."

And in 1963, Mr. Randolph’s vision of another March on Washington became a reality. It was there that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" address.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my father’s death. I enjoyed looking through some of the old documents from his days as a union leader for The Order of Railroad Telegraphers. I think he would shake his head in disgust if he were alive to see what the economic policies of this country were doing to working class families. And I suspect that he would think Americans need to hear those stories about Commander Coxey that he learned as a youth.

Scooter, We Hardly Knew Ye

Many people are disappointed that Team Libby put on such a shallow defense for Scooter Libby. They had begun the trial with trash talk that was worthy of the corner men working with a prime Mike Tyson. One almost expected Scooter to jump over the attorneys’ table and take a bite out of Patrick Fitzgerald’s ear.

But it didn’t happen.

Scooter has a story to tell, Teddy Wells announced in opening statements. He convinced many that the defense was going to tell the jury – and indeed the nation – what really happened in the White House in the summer of 2003. Scooter the Martyr was suffering the indignity of being "thrown under the bus" to save Karl Rove. Would Attorney Wells not reduce Karl to a quivering puddle of flesh on the witness stand? Had not the Vice President of the United States of America brought forth a stone tablet that read, "Thou shall not sacrifice the man who the president asked to stick his neck into a meat grinder?" Wouldn’t Attorney Wells put His Honesty Cheney on the witness stand, to make it crystal clear that Scooter is an Innocent Man?

But that didn’t happen, either.

Instead, there was a strangely disorganized defense. As MSNBC’s David Shuster said, it was as if Team Libby was saying, "Scooter didn’t rob THIS bank, and the proof is that there are OTHER banks that he isn’t even accused of robbing!"

But as David Corn pointed out in his 2-12-07 "Libby Trial: What Scooter Didn’t Do," leaks are often selective. "During his grand jury testimony – which was played for the trial jurors – Libby explained how he had been tasked by Cheney (with George W. Bush’s approval) to leak selectively to Miller excerpts from the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (which the White House believed supported its case for war). Libby also told the grand jurors how he worked with then- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to leak portions of the NIE to The Wall Street Journal – not to every reporter with whom he would come into contact."

More, Mr. Fitzgerald exposed the fact that Libby, Cheney and Bush kept the declassification of parts of the NIE secret from other administration officials, including Rice, Hadley and Tenet. More, Libby kept this secret from these officials during meetings when they discussed the option of declassifying it.

In his 2-15-07 "Libby’s cynical defense," Sidney Blumenthal told of some fascinating inside information regarding Libby’s defense: "Throughout the anxious months before the trial of United States v. I. Lewis Libby, one of Scooter Libby’s old mentors, a prominent Washington attorney and Republican with experience going back to the Watergate scandal and with intimate ties to neoconservatives, implored him repeatedly to stop covering up for Vice President Cheney and to cut a deal with the special prosecutor. Yet another distinguished Washington lawyer and personal friend of Libby’s, privy to the mentor’s counsel, reinforced his urgent advice and offered to provide Libby with introductions to former prosecutors who might help guide him. But Libby rebuffed them. He refused to listen. He insisted on a trial."

Perhaps Scooter is beginning to listen closer to his friends and attorneys now. Team Libby refused to put Scooter on the witness stand. The decision was not made because they were in a position of strength. Dick Cheney was not called. There is speculation that the defense attorneys may have had a "focus group" that revealed this. Actually, their experience in selecting the jury for Libby’s trial was a clear indicator that Dick Cheney is held in utter contempt by most Americans.

Blumenthal also noted how easily Patrick Fitzgerald handled neoconservative John Hannah on the witness stand. "Hannah’s role was to be the first-person witness to buttress Libby’s memory defense. Yet, under cross-examination by Fitzgerald, Hannah was cracked apart in a matter of minutes. Fitzgerald asked him whether defending Cheney in the media was an important part of Libby’s job. ‘It would be important to push back on those issues, yes,’ Hannah said. Fitzgerald then got Hannah to acknowledge that getting Libby to give up an hour’s worth of his time, given his heavy work load, would be difficult. Fitzgerald zeroed in on Libby’s two long meetings" with Judith Miller. He also spoke of how "the demolition of Hannah was not done": a juror asked if Libby’s difficulties with memory led to concerns about his ability to do his job?

The neoconservative base that supports Scooter is left with less than Team Libby when it comes to trying to defend him. They continue say things like Plame wasn’t covert; that no one was charged with exposing her identity; that Libby didn’t tell Novak about Plame; that Wilson was a democrat; and, most pathetic of all, having shrills like Mary Matalin attempt to convince people that Chris Matthews was the real problem

Yet even on a site as conservative as Fox News’ "Fox Fan," Catherine Herridge wrote yesterday about "Why the Scooter Libby trial matters."

"It’s a complicated story and one that is exposing the questionable relationship between some journalists and their sources in the nation’s capital. While this aspect of the trial is getting a lot of attention, I believe some important principles are being missed.

"When we ask smart, driven, courageous recruits to join the intelligence community, and in many circumstances put their lives on the line in this post 9/11 world, there is an unspoken trust – that their missions and their identities will not be put at risk.

"I spend a great deal of time covering the intelligence community and intelligence related matters. Based on some of those conversations, it appears to me that the outing of Valerie Plame had an impact. No one really knows, with an absolute certainty, the role of Valerie Plame at the CIA. For now, she is most well known as the wife of former ambassador and war critic Joe Wilson.

"But one intelligence observer put it to me this way: When an agent’s name or cover is blown, their entire career can be jeopardized and more importantly, the contacts they have developed over the years can be lost. I don’t know if that’s the case with Valerie Plame … and many question how ‘undercover’ she really was. But it’s worth noting that if the key to preventing another terror attack is good intelligence, then the folks we expect to do the legwork must have complete faith that the system will protect them and their sources."

Scooter Libby belonged to a small but dangerous group of individuals who were willing to expose a covert agent, and destroy all of the work that she and the people she worked with were involved in, to protect the purposeful lies they told to lead our nation into war. And that’s why Team Libby put on such a weak case to defend him. There is no defending what he and his ilk did.people have expressed disappointment at the shallow defense put on by Team Libby in Scooter’s criminal trial. The defense attorneys had done some trash talking that was worthy of the corner men of a prime

The Office of Strategic Influence

"The neoconservatives who have taken us down this path are actually very few in number. It is a small pack of zealots whose dedication has spanned decades, and that through years of selective recruitment has become a government cult with cells in most of the national security system. Among those cells are the secretive Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense (reportedly now disbanded) and a similar operation in the State Department that is managed in the office of Under Secretary for Disarmament John Bolton. ….

"….They are clustered at the National Security Council (NSC), in the Defense and State Departments, and within Vice President Cheney’s own parallel national security office. That particular little-known organization – not accountable to Congress and virtually unknown to the American people – should be completely dismantled. Never in the history of our democracy has there been established such an influential and pervasive center of power with the ability to circumvent long-standing and accepted reporting structures and to skew decision-making practices. It has been described to me chillingly by a former senior government official as a coup d’etat …." – The Politics of Truth; Joseph Wilson; pages 432 & 434.

As the Scooter Libby criminal trial unfolds, it is important to keep in mind that the operation to damage Joseph and Valerie Wilson took place on four distinct levels. There is, of course, a certain amount of over-lapping among these four layers. Thus, the recent media focus on the activities of Douglas Feith may provide an opportunity to promote a greater understanding of the relationship between the Plame scandal and the purposeful lying about "intelligence" that brought this nation to war in Iraq.

The first level that is involved is the Office of the Vice President (OVP). For our discussion, this generally refers to Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby. The vice president also had linkages with other high-ranking officials, of course; the most important may have been the relationship he enjoyed with Donald Rumsfeld. At this time, I assume that readers are familiar with the history between Rumsfeld and Cheney. Their relationship allowed for the dangerous linkages found at the second level.

The second level is the intelligence operations created by the "cells" that Wilson spoke of. "They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal – a small cluster of policy advisors and analysts who were based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans," Seymour Hersch noted in "Chain of Command." (page 207) The OSP was set up to "find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true" – evidence to convince the American public that Iraq posed a threat to our national security.

Douglas Feith, who played a leadership role in the OSP, has a curious history. He was "fired from a job in the National Security Council early in the Reagan years for leaking classified information" to a foreign country. (A Pretext for War; James Bamford; 2005 edition; page 404) Feith, who is tied to the current neoconservative/AIPAC espionage scandal, would get in touch with his associate David Wurmser, who at the time was in the State Department, and ask him "to set up a small and very secret intelligence unit in his office." (Bamford; page 288) Wurmser’s unit, called the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, focused its efforts on discrediting the CIA analysis that indicated that Iraq posed no threat to the USA. In time, Wurmser would transfer to the OVP, and the OSP would absorb the PCEG.

Feith also created "the Orwellian-sounding Office of Strategic Influence" (Bamford; page 296), which was to coordinate "a massive disinformation factory" with the Rendon Group. This type of disinformation campaign attempts to convince people that their friends are really their foes, and their foes are actually their allies. For example, the Feith group would attempt to discredit MSNBC’s Hardball, which exposed the OVP’s purposeful lies on WMD, among progressive democrats.

Feith & Friends are mentioned in Thomas Ricks’ "Fiasco." He quotes the Marine General who served as operations director for the Joint Staff as saying they "were essentially an extra-governmental organization … (operating) in the shadows" (page 55) Also, on page 167, he quotes an administration official as saying, "Feith ought to be drawn, quartered, and hung."

The third level was the secretive White House Irag Group, which included high-ranking officials from the Office of the President and the OVP. Bamford writes that "its job was to sell the war to the general public, largely through televised addresses and by selectively leaking the intelligence to the media." (page 318) The WHIG was focused on presenting the "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" propaganda.

The fourth level is found embedded in the corporate news media. It includes a wide range of journalists. In the Libby trial, we are seeing that a significant amount of the Washington press corps is dependant upon the table scraps from groups like the WHIG for leads for their stories. This is one of the major factors that influenced what was presented as "news" to the public in the build-up to the war.

Even after Joseph Wilson exposed the OVP for purposefully lying to this country about Saddam and WMDs, few journalists dared to tell the truth On page 440 of his book, Wilson describes his attempts to "piece together the truth about the attacks on myself and the disclosure of Valerie’s employment by carefully studying all the coverage and by speaking confidentially with members of the press who have been following the story. A number of them have been candid with me in our private conversations but unwilling to speak publicly with the same candor. When I asked why the reporting on the story has not been more aggressive, I have received responses that are very disturbing. A reporter told me that one of the six newspeople who had received the leak stated flatly that the pressure he had come under from the administration in the past several months to remain silent made him fear that if he did his job and reported on the leak story, he would ‘end up in Guantanamo’ – a dark metaphor for the career isolation he would suffer …" Journalists felt threatened, pure and simple. Again, Rove’s call to Chris Matthews was a threat that was intended to convey the message that the administration would go after their enemies’ families.

The weak and pathetic nature of many of the "leading" journalists has been put on display during the Libby trial. Yet, this alone does not explain all that went on. For example, Libby clearly was tasked by Cheney to leak the "declassified" NIE to specific journalists, but not to others. The reason is that a minority of the journalists are used by the forces found within the second level , as opposed to the third level. In other words, some journalists coordinate with the shadowy sources in the OSP-type groups, rather than simply the WHIG. These are those few "journalists" who enjoyed the greatest access to classified information.

Scooter Libby inhabited the top three levels. His defense strategy is centered on making the Plame scandal appear to be a simple misunderstanding between people in the White House, attempting to "correct" the "false stories" that Joseph Wilson was spreading about the vice president. The truth about the scandal, however, is found between the OVP, the OSP, and those "few" journalists.

The Declassification of Dick Cheney

A guest on MSNBC’s Hardball stated his belief that Vice President Cheney had the authority to declassify CIA NOC Valerie Plame’s identity earlier this week. This led to some discussion of if this were indeed true, or if perhaps the guest intended to say that VP Cheney may have believed he had the authority to declassify parts of the National Intelligence Estimate which he had I. Liar Libby share with Judith Miller and other journalists. The issue of how (and why) the NIE was declassified is worth taking a closer look at.

In the Libby criminal trial, the prosecution has not charged Scooter with violating the law when he shared NIE information with Miller. However, Mr. Fitzgerald has not accepted the position of Team Libby that the NIE was definitely declassified before Scooter "shared" it with others.

Some of the most interesting information regarding the differences are found in Document 80 (filed 4-5-06) and Document 82 (filed 4-12-06). Exhibit C of Doc. 82-2 is a seven page letter from Mr. Fitzgerald to Attorneys Jeffress, Wells and Tate, which reads in part:

"At this time we do not intend to offer evidence of ‘other crimes’ … As we discussed during our telephone conversation, Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate (‘NIE’) to such reporters in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003 (and caused at least one other government official to discuss the NIE with the media in July 2003). …We are not obligated at this time to disclose impeachment material of Mr. Libby should he testify in his defense."

The topic of declassification is of interest not only to the federal court hearing the criminal charges against Libby. It has also been the focus of significant interest to Congressman Henry Waxman and the House Committee on Government Reform. He has authored and co-authored several letters to President Bush and other senior administration officials regarding the abuse of classifying and declassifying material, including the NIE that Scooter used with Miller and others.

These letters include:
1-14-04: Rep Waxman to Condoleezza Rice (then National Security Advisor to President Bush).
2-10-04: Reps Waxman and Conyers to President Bush.
7-14-05: Rep. Waxman to WH Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
7-18-05: Rep Waxman to President Bush.
11-9-05: Rep. Waxman to WH Counsel Harriet Miers
4-6-06: Rep. Waxman to President Bush

Most, or perhaps all of these letters can be found at FindLaw.com.

Congressman Waxman requested that Harold Relyea, Specialist in American National Government, of the Congressional Research Service, determine if the Vice President was authorized to disclose "classified information to journalists on a selective basis?" At issue was President Bush’s Executive Order 13292 (3-25-03), which amended E.O. 12958. In his March 10, 2006 response, Relyea noted that prior to 1982, no vice president "participated in the security classification program." From the time the security classification program started on March 22, 1940, until Reagan issued E.O. 12356 on April 2, 1982, the vice presidents didn’t play a role. Reagan changed this to allow VP Bush the authority to classify material as Top Secret, Secret, or Confidential.

In general, documents are declassified or downgraded by the official who authorized the classification, if that official is still in office; the person who replaces that official; those who supervise the said official; or an official who has been delegated, in writing, that authority by the agency head responsible for the administration of the agency or department.

Bush’s order, which took place in the same month that the first "work up" on Joseph Wilson was held in VP Cheney’s office, granted "the Vice President with authority coequal to that of the President to security classify information originally. While the definition of ‘Declassification authority’ remained unchanged, it is not clear if the change in classification authority for the Vice President in any way modified the declasification authority of the Vice President.

"… The Vice President appears to have some limited declassification authority. However, it appears that the Vice President is not otherwise authorized to disclose or to direct or to approve the disclosure of security classified information to persons not not authorized to receive it."

In other words, VP Cheney did not have the authority to direct Libby or Wolfowitz to share the NIE to journalists on a selective basis. Yet this is exactly what Cheney did, in the period before back-tracking and having President Bush declassify the NIE.

Thus, in his 4-6-06 letter to President Bush, Congressman Waxman wrote, "Mr. Libby reportedly testified that ‘the Vice President had advised (Libby) that the President had authorized (Libby) to disclose relevant portions of the NIE.’Mr. Libby also reportedly testified that Vice President Cheney himself ‘authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists …’ Both claims raise serious questions. …

"If Mr. Libby’s testimony is accurate, there are serious unanswered questions about what authority Vice President Cheney was operating under when he directed his staff to leak this classified information."

The White House ignored all of Congressman Waxman’s letters on this topic, from 2004 to 2006. Progressive democrats from the grass roots should support his efforts to get answers in 2007.

Irving's Ghost

"Can I just make one other comment about this stuff? I get a lot of information in the course of a day. I probably get -- you know, after all this came up I sort of for a few days tried to take a census of how many pages of stuff I get in a day, and I tend to get between 100 and 200 pages of material a day that I’m supposed to read and understand and I – you know, I start at 6 in the morning and I go to 8 or 8:30 at night, and most of that is meetings. So a lot of information comes through me, and I can’t possibly recall all the stuff I think is important, let alone other stuff that I don’t think is as important. And so when a lot of this – a lot of stuff that comes to me, what I will normally do is I’ll gather my staff together and say, ‘hey, what happened here?’ You know, ‘there was some meeting we had on, let’s say, Iraq. What did people say, or what happened last week when we had that meeting? Did State need to do something, or was the Defense Department supposed to do something?’ And we’ll sort of pool our recollections of it and that almost always bring (sic) me a fuller recollection of what’s happened. I haven’t done that here because as I understand it, you don’t want me to do that here. I’m happy to do it at some point, but I haven’t …. I apologize if there’s some stuff I remember and some I don’t, but it’s – I’m just trying to tell you what I do in fact remember." – Scooter Libby; March 5, 2004

The jury in the Libby trial will be hearing Scooter tell the grand jury this little nugget at the end of his testimony. One need not be trained in investigating crime to recognize this pathetic little rambling as a liar attempting to cover his tracks. Proof of this is self-evident: the grand jury indicted Libby for lying. It is safe to assume that the jury today will likewise view Libby with disgust.

It’s important to recognize that "likability" – which Webster’s describes simply as having qualities that bring about a favorable regard – is a significant factor in any jury trial. This was obvious when both the prosecution and defense asked potential jurors about their feelings regarding VP Dick Cheney. It is a factor with each witness that takes the stand: does the jury trust them? Like them? Believe them? Or do they have an internal reaction that warns them to suspect the witness is a snake?

Equally important is the way the jurors view each attorney involved in the trial. It includes the "charm factor." In this case, most people find Patrick Fitzgerald to be an honest man. Judge Walton has commented on this quality when Theodore Wells hinted otherwise during a discussion at the bench. His presentation in the courtroom is powerful.

Teddy Wells is also a polished trial attorney. He is an intelligent, capable man. But he has a client that he knows is guilty as hell. At some level, the jurors are aware of that. And this is a factor in the decision that Team Libby will have to make about whether to call Scooter to the witness stand.

William Jeffress is someone that people who have followed important legal cases respect. He is very good at what he does. In this trial, however, he is not attempting to play the lawyer people like. There is a decided risk in playing the pit bull and attacking witnesses in a case that involves your client having participated in a cowardly attack.

A big part of the strength of the prosecution’s case is the timing. Patrick Fitzgerald has put witnesses on in a way that supports his case for convicting Scooter on every count. Each piece fits together with the larger whole. The defense thus tries to disrupt the flow. While this hasn’t reached the level of an Irving Kanarek, the jury may sense that Team Libby does not want them to hear certain facts. Irving’s ghost may yet haunt Team Libby.

And, finally, the "likability" factor will come into play when the defense begins to put on its case. Assuming that there is no plea deal before the defense starts, they will have to decide if they can risk putting Scooter on the stand. The same thing with VP Cheney: as pointed out on MSNBC, many believe that if Cheney did testify honestly, he would damage Libby’s defense. If he isn’t called to testify, jurors may wonder why they were asked about him during jury selection.

Team Libby also had pointed their finger at Karl Rove during their opening statement. No witness, with only the possible exception of Cheney, is going to strike the jury as more repulsive than Rove. That’s why Team Libby would call him. Rove offers nothing to the case that would factually help Libby – he would be called simply to attempt to gain an emotional response. But, if neither Libby nor Cheney take the stand, the defense would likely be restricted in what areas it might question Karl about.

Will I. Lewis Libby Testify?

" …. appellate judges are less likely to overturn jury verdicts if the jurors had seen the defendant testify and concluded he was lying on the stand." – Hurricane; James Hirsch; pages 153-154.

Late yesterday, Team Libby filed a "Brief of Defendant I. Lewis Libby on Admissibility of State of Mind Evidence Without Defendant’s Testimony" (Document 264). At issue is if Judge Walton will allow the defense to enter into evidence the same amount of supporting evidence, regardless of if Scooter takes the stand, to prop up their claim that "any misstatements he made were the result of confusion, mistake, or faulty memory, rather than deliberate lies." (Doc.264; page 1)

"We emphasize that at this point Mr. Libby has not decided whether he will testify," they write. "He will make that decision, as defendants customarily do, on the advice of counsel after having the opportunity to assess the full prosecution case and other evidence presented during the defense case. …. In keeping with the pretrial notice requirement of CIPA 5, the Court and the parties assumed during the CIPA proceedings that Mr. Libby would testify. But as we demonstrate below, that assumption does not mean that evidence of the matters commanding his attention will be irrelevant if he ultimately exercises his right to remain silent.

"1. At the outset of the CIPA proceedings, defense counsel observed that it was ‘very likely’ Mr. Libby would testify but did not commit to such testimony and noted that aspects of the memory defense might be presented through cross-examination of government witnesses and through defense witnesses. … The Court as well has recognized the possibility that Mr. Libby might not testify. …. for example, the Court declared that ‘the defendant will therefore be permitted to introduce documentray proof or testify with some degree of detail, if he chooses to testify, about the events and activities he was engaged in during those relevant time periods. …"

It is interesting to note that while the prosecution’s case has remained focused on proving the specific charges against Libby, the defense’s tactics tend to shift. First there was the idea that it was a matter of a few people remembering things differently: perhaps Mr. Russert was the one who "misremembered" the conversation with Scooter. As the prosecution made clear that there was overwhelming evidence that Scooter had known about Plame’s identity long before his conversation with Russert, Team Libby shifted to a "memory defense." Shortly after Judge Walton rejected the defense’s memory "expert," it was announced they were planning to call VP Dick Cheney to testify for the defense.

In their "Proposed Theory of Defense Instruction," the defense attorneys claim, "Mr. Libby denies that he intended to or did obstruct justice, make intentionally false statements to the FBI, or make intentionally false statements to the grand jury. He contends that he told the FBI and grand jury his honest recollections at the time, and to the extent any of those recollections were incorrect, his mistakes were innocent." (Document 249) In theory, that is a valid defense. And even if we know that Scooter is guilty on all of the charges he is faced with, we appreciate that he has the Constitutional right to a fair trial – including putting on as strong of a defense as possible.

Scooter has the right to have his attorneys put on that defense, even if he decides not to testify. But it seems clear that, if it were true that "any conversations he had about Ambassador Wilson’s wife during June and July 2003 were so brief, and the information so incidental to the issues he was dealing with, that he honestly did not recall them when he was questioned about them," he would want to get up on that witness stand and look the jurors in the eye, and tell them the truth. It would seem that his attorneys would want him to, also. If the prosecution’s case were so weak that they did not feel he needed to, it would be one thing. But few people think that Mr. Fitzgerald’s case can honestly be described as "weak."

Thus, it seems possible that the strength of the case Mr. Fitzgerald is presenting is what troubles Team Libby. I suspect that it may be the decisions Judge Walton made yesterday about the Libby tapes and the newspaper articles, that are the most significant factors. Let’s again look at what Team Libby state in Document 249: "Mr. Libby further contends that when the investigation began, he was confident that he had not provided any information about Mr. Wilson’s wife to Robert Novak, and that he had not disclosed classified information about Mr. Wilson or his wife to any other reporters."

"The day of his interview with the FBI, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby hand-marked copies of two Washington Post articles about the breadth of a criminal-leak investigation, and underlined were key passages suggesting any official who told reporters about a CIA officer could be in legal jeopardy …. Government prosecutors argued that the October 2003 articles show Libby … had a motive to lie about his secret conversations with reporters and knew he was in potential trouble," wrote Carol Leonnig in a 2-4-07 Washington Post article. (Prosecutor: Libby kept articles on leak risks)

The significance of this is apparent when added to Scooter’s grand jury testimony. Team Libby had argued to keep "any portion of the transcript other than those that reflect the false declarations with which the defendant has been charged" from being admitted into evidence. However, as Mr. Fitzgerald noted in the Government’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Admission of Complete Transcript of Defendant’s Grand Jury Testimony," Team Libby did not cite any cases "in which the Court has precluded the government from introducing the complete transcript of a defendant’s grand jury testimony in support of perjury charges."

Mr. Fitzgerald noted that "the defense has indicated that it intends to contest the materiality of the charged false declarations by arguing that the focus of the grand jury’s investigation was the leak of information regardingValerie Wilson’s employment to Robert Novak, rather than leaks to other reporters (or that the defendant believed the scope of the investigation to be so limited),…." Team Libby wants to argue that Scooter didn’t tell Novak – that it was Armitage and Rove. But, Mr. Fitzgerald notes, "The government is entitled to demonstrate through all of the questions asked of defendant that the scope of the grand jury investigation included: (a) identifying all individuals involved in leaking information concerning Ms. Wilson’s employment to any reporters; (b) determining the circumstances under which information regarding Ms. Wilson'’ employment was learned and leaked by such individuals; and (c) determining whether false information was provided to the FBI or the grand jury. ….

"Second, admission of the complete transcript is necessary in order to establish that the defendant made the charged false declarations under non-coercive circumstances, and in response to careful. Thorough, and fair questioning. …

"Third, in light of the defendant’s planned ‘memory’ defense, it is critical for the jury to have an opportunity to assess the quality of defendant’s memory as reflected in his testimony throughout both grand jury appearances. …."(Doc. 231)

The new Team Libby filing indicates that it is possible the defense will not call Scooter to testify. They note they will, regardless of if he takes the stand or not, attempt a memory defense. That will include providing information in three areas outlined in the document: (1) the "statement admitting relevant facts" made by the government, which was the substitution(s) made by Mr. Fitzgerald that were allowed under CIPA; (2) testimony by persons Libby worked with; and (3) the morning intelligence briefing materials.

They write, "Mr. Libby also proposes to present testimony from persons with whom he worked closely at the OVP. Those witnesses -–potentially including Vice President Cheney and one or more of Mr. Libby’s then-deputies – will testify, based on personal knowledge, that certain national security matters consumed Mr. Libby’s attention during the period at issue."

Will Team Libby call Scooter to the stand? Or will they advise him to sit quietly? Perhaps more interesting, will Team Libby call VP Cheney to testify about his "personal knowledge"? It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

The Battlefield

"As late as December 5, 2003, ‘a senior White House official’ was quoted in the Financial Times gloating, ‘We have rolled the earthmovers in over this one’." – The Politics of Truth; Joseph Wilson; page 360.

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again." – The Battlefield; William Cullen Bryant

As we enter another week in the trial of I. Liar Libby, it seems fair to say that there are two very different points of view regarding the Plame scandal. The first is that of the rabid right wing which, like the "anonymous" White House senior official that we can safely code name "Karl," endorses the concept of a cover-up as being good for the country. The other side is invested in a search for the truth. And, like Martin Luther King, Jr., they have faith that Bryant was correct when he said that truth crushed to earth will rise again.

The "cover-up" side has generally buried its collective head in the sand. The attempt to spin the case by using talking points that are fully discredited. They claim Valerie Plame was not covert, despite the fact that "special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done ‘covert work overseas’ on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA ‘was making specific efforts to conceal’ her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge’s opinion." (Newsweek; The CIA Leak: Plame Was Still Covert; Michael Isikoff; 2-13-06)

They also cling to the notion that the only leak that Mr. Fitzgerald was supposed to investigate involved Robert Novak. They ignore what Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the press on 12-30-03: "Patrick J. Fitzgerald will serve as special counsel in charge of this matter. I chose Mr. Fitzgerald, my friend and former colleague, based on his sterling reputation for integrity and impartiality. He is an absolutely apolitical career prosecutor. He is a man with extensive experience in national security and intelligence matters, extensive experience conducting sensitive investigations, and in particular, experience in conducting investigations of alleged government misconduct.

"I have today delegated to Mr. Fitzgerald all the approval authorities that will be necessary to ensure that he has the tools to conduct a completely independent investigation; that is, that he has the power and authority to make whatever prosecution judgements he believes are appropriate …."

Unable to accept that an honest prosecutor will not participate in the cover-up, Mona Charen writes, "The man on trial did not do the leaking. …. Accordingly, there was no crime. And yet, a prosecutor presents evidence, a jury lobs questions, and ‘Scooter’ Libby may go to jail for 30 years. This charade competes with the Duke ‘rape’ case for prosecutorial misconduct, brazen defiance of common sense, and unbelievable jeopardy to the innocent. …. Where, I wonder. Are all the folks who worry about attracting good people to government service? Libby gave up a lucrative private practice to serve his country and now may lose everything including his liberty for the trouble. This trial is a farce and an outrage." (National Review; A Farce and an Outrage; 2-2-07)

And it’s not just Mr. Fitzgerald who is the target for the rabid-rights diseased secretions. Last week, FBI Investigator Deborah Bond testified against Libby. Ms. Bond would seem the type of investigator that "law & order" types would admire and respect. Yet John Podhoretz writes, "It would be impossible in fewer than a thousand words to explain how Libby’s lawyers made FBI interviewer Deborah Bond look bad, but they did. …. Maybe that’s because the case against Scooter Libby is so astonishingly petty that arguing over it is like arguing over scraps." (New York Post; The Libby Farce; 2-2-07)

At least Podhoretz admits, "Now, Scooter Libby is an old friend of mine, and I think he is a great public servant and a patriot, and I would dearly love to see him acquitted. But I’m entirely agnostic on the specific charges brought by Fitzgerald – I don’t know whether Libby told the truth to the grand jury." Others, like Tucker Carlson, claim to know that Libby is guilty of nothing but politics, while refusing to disclose their personal connections to Libby.

Today’s Editor & Publisher contains quotes from perhaps the sickest of all Libbyites, Ann Coulter. "People who attack conservatives never have to worry about their own dirty laundry coming out. All they have to worry about is whether People magazine will use a good picture of them in its ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ issue. Find out about Patrick Fitzgerald what we’d know if he were Ken Starr. If you won’t defend your own champions, conservatives, then don’t sit back and wonder why so few people want to be your champions." (Ann Coulter: Mad at Conservatives For Not Fighting Back on Libby Case; 2-4-07)

Perhaps Ms. Coulter has not noticed that Mr. Libby is about to become a convicted felon precisely because he did attempt to smear someone who was exposing the lies of his "champion," Dick Cheney. But then again, under the circumstances, her appeal to irrational emotions may be all that she has left.

The Court will decide a couple of important issues this week. The first is whether to allow the media to have copies of the "Scooter grand jury tapes." Mr. Fitzgerald wants to make the tapes, like the other court exhibits, public. The defense attorneys are taking the position that making the tapes public would risk Libby’s getting a fair trial. This seems a curious stance, considering that the jury will hear the tapes. It may be that Judge Walton will keep the actual tapes under wraps, at least until after the jury convicts Libby.

A more significant issue in the context of the trial itself is the debate about Mr. Fitzgerald’s attempt to enter two newspaper articles into evidence. "The day of his interview with the FBI, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby hand-marked copies of two Washington Post articles about the breadth of a criminal-leak investigation, and underlined were two key passages suggesting that any official who had told reporters about a CIA officer could be in legal jeopardy …. The October 2003 articles show Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff at the time, had a motive to lie about his secret conversations with reporters and knew he was in potential trouble." (The Washington Post; Carol Leonnig; Prosecutor: Libby kept articles on leak risks; 2-4-07)

Perhaps these two issues are what has the right-wing cheerleaders like Charen and Coulter so upset. If the trial moves in the direction that Mr. Fitzgerald advocates, the jury – and the American public – will be exposed to explosive evidence of the extent that the Office of the Vice President was willing to go to destroy Joseph and Valerie Wilson. The two underlined articles indicate that Libby was aware the investigation wasn’t focused on the Novak leak alone. And the Libby tapes may take their place along side another infamous set of White House scandal tapes that damaged another republican administration.

The Bush administration, and in particular the OVP, went to great lengths to cover-up their roles in the Plame scandal. They brought in earthmovers. But the FBI investigators and Mr. Fitzgerald’s office have begun to expose the truth, to an extent that threatens more than Scooter Libby. It is beginning to seem less likely that Libby, and especially Cheney, are going to want to be cross-examined by Patrick Fitzgerald on the battlefield.

Why Matthews Matters

" ‘Wilson’s wife is fair game.’ " Those are fighting words for any man, and I’d just had them quoted to me by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. It was July 21, 2003, barely a week since a column by Robert Novak in the Washington Post had nemed my wife, Valerie, as a CIA officer, and now the host of Hardball was calling to tell me that as far as the White House was concerned, they had declared open season on my family.

In his signature staccato, Matthews was blunt: "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says, and I quote, ‘Wilson’s wife is fair game.’ " Before abruptly hanging up, Matthews added: "I will confirm that if asked." As head of the White House political office and one of President George W. Bush’s closest advisers, Rove was legendary for his right-wing zeal and take-no-prisoners operating style. But what he was doing now was tantamount to declaring war on two U.S. citizens, both of them with years of government service. – The Politics of Truth; Joseph Wilson; page 1.

In the past week, testimony and court exhibits have documented the role that Chris Matthews and Hardball have played in the Plame scandal. On 1-25-07, Matthews askedHardball correspondent David Shuster, "David, I guess our show was mentioned there today?" Shuster responded, "Chris, absolutely. … (Catherine) Martin said she was directed by the vice president to pay particular attention to Hardball because, Chris, you were the one focusing so heavily on the questions about, what does this mean? How did this claim get into the State of the Union about Niger? Did the vice president get told about it? Did the vice president know, in fact, Wilson’s conclusions before that got in the State of the Union?"

On July 6, 2003, Joseph Wilson’s op-ed was published in the New York Times. Wilson also appeared on Meet the Press that day, and "describes his trip, and why he came away convinced that no attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Niger had taken place." (Wilson; page 453)

On July 8, 2003, Chris Matthews was reporting on the issue. He asked, "Why would the vice president’s office, Scooter Libby, whoever’s running the office, why would they send a CIA effort to down in Niger to verify something, find out that there wasn’t a uranium sale and then not follow up by putting that information out, or correcting that information in the president’s State of the Union? If they went to the trouble of sending Joe Wilson all the way to Africa to find out whether that country had ever sold uranium to Saddam Hussein, why won’t they follow up on that?"

In "Hubris," authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn quote Adam Levine, a member of the administration’s communications staff, as saying that, "Scooter was going nuts" over the media coverage that Wilson’s op-ed was getting. Libby was particularlu upset by Matthews: "He talked about it repeatedly to Levine and Catherine Martin, Cheney’s chief spokesperson. … Libby ordered Levine and Martin to review the transcripts of everything Matthews was saying on the subject." (Hubris; page 265)

It’s important to remember that Libby prided himself in his ability to stay out of the news. "Libby had a good lawyer’s understanding of caution, patience – and silence. Both Cheney and Libby were artists at just going quiet …It was an unusual appearance of his name in the newspaper, and he was excruciatingly uncomfortable," Bob Woodward wrote of an earlier article in a newspaper that mentioned a Libby disagreement with Colin Powell. "I don’t like to see my name" in the papers, he told another administration official. (Plan of Attack; pages 49-50)

Thus, when Matthews said, "It sounds to me (like) a hawk in the vice president’s office, probably from Scooter Libby on down," had advocated putting the yellow cake lie into the president’s State of the Union address, Scooter was furious. Night after night, Chris Matthews was reporting on the Plame scandal.

Even after the Office of the Vice President forced CIA director George Tenet to fall on his sword, and accept responsibility for not removing the infamous "16 words" from Bush’s speech, Matthews continued. He recognized that the idea that Cheney and Libby would go to the Agency’s HQ six times, and pressure them for intelligence on WMD, including the request that they review the Niger rumor, and then not have any follow-up on it, was not believable. As he has reported, when he asked Tenet about this, the CIA director would only say, "Ask him." But Cheney isn’t speaking to Chris Matthews.

Court exhibit 1609 has four typed pages of OVP "talking points" that address a number of what they called the "false allegations" of Chris Matthews. But the OVP response did not stop there. Libby ordered Adam Levine to call Matthews to complain. Levine, who had once worked as a senior producer for Hardball, told the authors of "Hubris" that he called Matthews, and the two engaged in a "shouting match." Levine attempted to pressure Matthews by saying, "Some of what you’re saying about this sounds anti-Semitic." It was a cheap shot, and one that the authors say both Libby and Paul Wolfowitz were pushing. (page 266)

When Levine told Libby that he "had gotten nowhere" with Matthews, they decided to go a step farther. Levine recommended that Libby call Tim Russert to complain. According to information reported yesterday, Mary Matalin also told Libby to call Russert. On July 10, Libby made the call. In the next few days, we will hear Tim Russert’s testimony on that fateful call.

"Hubris" reports that Russert called Neal Shapiro after the call from Scooter. Shapiro would call Matthews’ executive producer, and "urge him to have the talkshow host throttle back a bit. ‘Hey,’ Shapiro recalled saying, ‘this guy is still the vice president’." (Hubris; page 267)

It is in this context that we should view Karl Rove’s call to Chris Matthews, in which he said that the White House would go to any length to destroy those who opposed them.