Replies

I agree with you about the education bill and spending bills. But that's all. When someone obstructs justice, it's often difficult to tell whether an "underlying" crime was committed. That's the whole point of obstructing justice in the first place - to prevent something from being discovered by authorities!

If what Fitzgerald is doing is wrong, I urge all the Libby defenders out there to start campaigning for changes to perjury and obstruction of justice laws. Maybe you'd like for there to be an exception to the laws, saying it's OK to lie under oath as long as no "underlying crimes" can be proven. That would be ridiculous to do, but at least your attacks on Fitzgerald would then make legal sense.

I am NOT campaigning again Fitzgerald. I guess a sarcasm tag was in order. My point was that Bush in many cases is a go along to get along kind of person. He picks his fights, and this isn't one he wants to pick right now. To your general point, the law is the law. If it is a bad law, it should be changed, but not ignored. We agree on that I think. Unfortunately, laws are passed that make little sense and the law enforcement community, from police to regulators to prosecutors, and left to make sense of it all.

The frustrating part is that this approach to the law, while right, makes for an uneven playing field. If the field were level, half of the previous administration and the entire DNC leadership (plus everyone associated with Jesse Jackson) would have been charged with a crime in the last ten years. But principles are only needed when it is harder to do the right thing than the wrong thing.

I don't see you pulling for Plame to be indicted. She lied under oath and so did her husband. We don't know how many reporters lied under oath either, so shouldn't they be indicted too? To start we don't even know if Libby actually lied but you are sure pushing that he did and that Firzy baby is a great prosecutor. He is trash, a water boy for the DNC, he was trying to nail the Bush administration for something, anything and this was the best he could come up with. If Libby fights this in court, and I hope he does, he will win.

When someone obstructs justice, it's often difficult to tell whether an "underlying" crime was committed. That's the whole point of obstructing justice in the first place - to prevent something from being discovered by authorities!

If I see you walking down the street today, it won't matter what people say, I will not conclude that you were murdered yesterday. Likewise if Plame-Wilsonan was not an overseas, covert agent within the 5 years prior to the revelation that she worked at CIA headquarters in Virginia, it really doesn't matter what else you prove - you can't prove that discussing her relationship with Amb. Wilson, the CIA, or the King of Siam violated the law against outting overseas covert agents.
Which is why, when the notice came to the Justice Department, Attorney General Ashcroft should not have recused himself until he had at least gotten a preliminary finding that the law might have been broken. And beyond that I will argue that even if the law was, technically, broken there should have been consideration of whether it was substantively malicious or reckless, on the one hand, or whether it was entrapment of WH officials being deliberately baited by the CIA into "violating the law."
It appears that the latter was the case but Ashcroft, undoubtedly with the agreement of the president, wimped out and allowed an attempted legal/PR coup against the administration to proceed. To the detriment not only of this administration but of the American people and specifically of any administration which is not in cahoots with the conspiracy two of whose facets are "objective journalism" and "the Democratic Party."