Patrick Fitzgerald Does a Star Tour as Captain Queeg

This is a very curious press conference just conducted by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. With his machine-gun delivery. He repeatedly flopped back and forth between saying that the “outing” of Valerie Plame, wife of discredited Ambassador Joe Wilson was a “serious matter,” and saying that he “reached no conclusion” whether she had been outed, and if so, when and by whom.

The mood in the room among the reporters changed appreciably as the conference went on. Initially, the press was very interested in the charges made and reasons for them, and in the charges not made against other people, and the reasons why not. But by the end of the conference, the reporters were clearly puzzled by the wandering speech of Fitzgerald and his lame analogies about a baseball pitcher throwing at a batter’s head, and a bank robber with his fingerprint on the holdup note and a signed confession.

Again and again, Mr. Fitzgerald said that it was “vital” that he and his Grand Jury should get to the end of the process with a “clear understanding of all of the facts.” Yet, again and again, he replied to reporters’ questions by saying that he “had not reached a conclusion” about central facts of the matter concerning either Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson.

Source: this is written as the press conference is under way. The transcript will surely be posted on the Internet within minutes.

Toward the end of the conference, I realized what I was watching. Fitzgerald was offering the press and the nation a version of Humphrey Bogart’s star turn in his last film as Phillip Francis Queeg, the Captain of the USS Caine in The Caine Mutiny (1954). The turning point in that film came when the obsessive Captain comes apart on the stand while being cross-examined by the lawyer for the mutineers in their trial.

Beginning with the exposure of Captain Queeg as obsessive in the story about the missing strawberries from the mess hall, the Captain visibly unravels. As he does so, he takes two ball bearings from his pocket and begins to play with them in his hand.

Fitzgerald seems to be a similar person. He is wound far too tight. He is obsessing about a few conversations with reporters (where it might be the reporters, not Scooter Libby, who are either lying or maybe just poorly remembering what happened years ago). At the same time, Fitzgerald is deliberately ignoring the larger fact that a war is going on, and must be won. It was just like Captain Queeg.

Fitzgerald had everything except the strawberries, and the ball bearings. By the end, I think many of the reporters had reached the same conclusion.

Nah, you're on the straight and narrow every day.

Okay, I've read it. Basically, the feds charge Libby gave sworn testimony like this: "I told reporters other reporters are telling me Wilson's wife might work at the CIA, but I don't know." In fact, the indictment says, Libby knew first-hand about Wilson's wife's work at the CIA, as evidenced by his calls to the CIA and conversations with other adminstration personnel.

What I thought was interesting was how it outlined the machinations of the CIA. It is a good, clear summary of that, at least! Valerie (covert or not? no one addresses it) sends hubby on a fact-finding mission to Africa about "the sixteen words" (the phrase is actually used in the indictment, which I found curious) where the President talks about Saddam's efforts to obtain uranium from Niger. CIA leaks the negative findings, suggesting it was the Vice President who initiated the mission.

There are a flurry of conversations around the middle of June, 2003 that involve Libby as -- you can imagine -- the admininstration tries to figure out how to blunt what is apparently a CIA operation against the President of the United States.

July 6, Joe Wilson blabs about his super-secret mission he was sent on by his super-secret wifey to Africa in a New York Times editorial critical of Bush and the war. There are other tendentious pieces in the press, but I think this is the most egregious.

Libby et al. are playing a delicate game of counter-leaking, trying to dispell the notion that the Vice President was behind the Africa trip, as well as expressing displeasure at the "selective leaking" coming from the CIA. Probably (I'm guessing here, who knows?) Libby did couch the wife revelation in terms of "hey, other reporters are telling me this, why not check it out yourself?" Be that as it may, if the other allegations in the indictment are correct, Libby did in fact know of the connection through official channels. (So when he told the Grand Jury he knew of it only through "other reporters" he wasn't being truthful, apparently).

Why did Libby tell the Grand Jury the "other reporters" story? Maybe he wanted to create a firebreak between the investigation and his superiors. Mabye that was the truth (but not the whole truth.) Maybe according the arcane rules which govern leaking, this is an acceptable bending of the truth -- kind of like police testimony during suppression hearings (sorry, couldn't resist, I am a defense attorney!)

I thought the outrage that caused Fitzpatrick's voice to quiver with righteous indignation was a little overblown, and why do we even get to the point of this indictment if LEGAL analysis of known facts indicate NO LAW COULD HAVE BEEN BROKEN IF THE NAME WAS DISCLOSED? Especially given the obvioius context -- a pi**ing match between the CIA and the White House during wartime -- I would think Libby's testimony could be overlooked. Like I said earlier, perjury is rarely charged, and only when the prosecutor is offended. "Prosecutorial discretion" is something prosecutors are supposed to exercise. You have to save the big stick of the criminal justice system for the truly deserving.

Having said all this, what's my take on Fitzpatrick. He's a federal prosecutor, with all that entails. He felt Libby's testimony was wrong enough and deliberate enough that he couldn't ignore it. That's his call, as far as it goes, and it's hard to second-guess him. One response would be to recognize that "Hey, I'm out of my league, and if the CIA and the White House want to have a tiff, then I'm not going to weigh in on one side or the other." On the other hand, you shouldn't lie to the Grand Jury, and if you put yourself in that position (and remember, Libby is presumed innocent) then that's life.

Oddly enough, I didn't really understand just how cheesy this whole thing was until I read the indictment. It may end up doing more GOOD than harm to the Administration if it can be made clear just what kind of monkey business was apparently going on.

Nice synopsis counselor made even nicer by the fact that I mostly agree with you. Where I diverge is on Mr Fitzpatrick. His opening act seems heavily laced with politics, as in "sixteen words", which you pointed out.

Then he goes on to inform of us of the seriousness of the underlying charge. And then leaves us hanging like the guy bragging to the gal at the honky tonk what a stud muffin he is and then when it's time to put up, he can't.

And there is where my opinion of Mr. Fitzpatrick took a nosedive into the dumper.

He never addresses the underlying crime. He leaves the elephant sitting smack dab in the middle of the family room and forgets all about it.

Not to mention his synopsis of the scenario is heavily laced to one side, the wrong side from my perspective. I suspect he never told the grand jurors that the Senate Intel Committee concluded that Wilson's verbal report supported the Bush administration claims. And I am equally sure he never asked them to ponder why the CIA would risk "outing" Mata Hari by sending Smoking Joe, her hubbie, on a "covert" mission they knew was going to end up in the press. These are things I sometimes wonder about.

The reason that Libby lied is the same as the reason for why liberal reporters were willing to risk going to jail to protect him: none of them, least of all Libby, wanted anyone else to know the identity of the White House leaker.

Exactly. This is also probably the gist of the "additional testimony" that Rove gave to Fitz that stopped him from persuing an indictment of Rove.

In addition to exposing Scooter's loose lips, the WH also gets a bonus -- to properly defend himself Scooter will have to Discredit Cooper, Miller, Russert, Plame, Wilson, etc. IN defending himself he will have to do the WH dirty work and expose the entire sham that is Plame-gate.

If they get real lucky, Libby's defense will also expose the possible rogue CIA people who have been undermining the WoT, and bring the whole house of cards down.

Once again Bush and Cheney have out-pokered the dims/MSM, and the dummies don't even know they have been had.

Completely confused is what I took away from this wondering completely bazaar press conference. If AJ Gonzales took the time to watch it...bet he was absolutely horrified. I understand RUDY GUILIANI highly recommended this guy. Guiliani again strikes out...Bernie now Fitz...geezzz...hope Bush realizes not to take Rudy's recommendation ever again.

Fitz is a disgrace, hoping Bush replaces him with a descent Fed AJ that's worth what we the taxpayers are paying him.

This guy flipped around in such a manner...who could follow him. I finally had to turn him off...I just couldn't stand to listen to him. It was driving me nuts. That happens when something is so OFF my spirit is replused by it.

God help us all...this reminds me of the horror we went through during the days of the 'toons' administration.

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