Another reason I have such high admiration for Fred Thompson is his resolute support of Scooter Libby, as noted in this recent interview, and a true Beltway grasp of the whole shameful debacle:
~~~~~~~~~~
"Thompson has backed another well-known supporter of the Iraq War at what some think might come at a political cost to his prospective presidential bid. Thompson says he doesn't care. Scooter Libby "is getting the shaft," he says, "and I'll help him if I can." Thompson speaks with a slow drawl, characteristic of his upbringing in southern Tennessee, and his demeanor is similarly laid back. He gestures infrequently and deliberately, only when he is particularly determined to underscore a point he is making.
The closest he came to being animated during our discussion came as he discussed the chain of events that led to the prosecution of Libby. His comments are worth quoting at length:
"I know what he's undergoing now. I know what it costs him. I know what's happening to him and his family, I've seen it before. And he's suffering from the fact that he is in Washington, D.C., as an employee of the Bush administration and especially as someone who is working for Dick Cheney.
It was obvious to me that no crime had been committed, that Valerie Plame was not a covered person under the statute.
I don't care what she calls herself or what [CIA Director] General Hayden calls her she is not a covered person under the statute. And yet a prosecutor willing to put reporters in jail after knowing that and after knowing who really leaked the information, [had] to come up with a scalp on the wall.
That's the very reason why Joe Lieberman and I killed the independent counsel law. Both parties have been guilty of using it. Both parties have been victims of it. And we came away with the idea--it gets back again to human nature.
When you pick a guy out and set him out with all the plaudits of the news media and he ought to be after the president of the United States or whoever, and give him all that power, and all that attention so that if he looks at it and says, 'Well, it's not that big a problem.' He's considered to be a failure. On the hand, if continues along and he's able to do anything and even nick the dragon a little bit, he's going to be a hero--he's going to stay on.
"And you don't set people up like that, unaccountable to nobody, in the United States of America, and focus all their attention on one person or one little group of people.
In the average U.S. attorney's office you have to balance out the priorities of what you're about here. You know, you could probably come up with some theoretical violation of every citizen in America if you devoted a few resources to him and stayed on him about two or three years.
So, here you go, the CIA, you know, kept sending over this complaint. Which--they started the whole problem! You know, it makes me mad as the devil just to think about it.
They picked this guy out to send to Niger, which is bound to go and let him come back and start making political attacks when his wife works over there!
Did it ever occur to anybody that her name was going to be and he was put in play in this town? The amazing thing is that it stayed out of the papers as long as it did! So they set the whole thing up and then they said: 'Oh my goodness somebody's got to prosecute this.' And they send it over to the attorney general, leak the information, puts the heat on the attorney general.
Then for some reason, Ashcroft recuses himself. This guy [James] Comey [former Deputy Attorney General] appoints his old buddy [Patrick] Fitzgerald [Thompson pronounces it FITZ gerald] and gives him authority. Now, we did away with the independent counsel law, but the attorney general's still got special counsel authority--must always have. When there's a genuine conflict of interest, you've got to have somebody come in and look at it. Hypothetical example: attorney general's brother gets it trouble, can't have the attorney general looking at it. It's common sense . . .
"This guy [Fitzgerald] has no restrictions, this guy has no supervision, this guy can do anything he wants to do. This guy, in my opinion, has more authority and power than the attorney general of the United States, for this purpose.
So he's off to the races. So it's a breakdown of the CIA. It's a breakdown of the Justice Dept. And now this independent counsel, knowing there's been no violation of the law keeps digging and digging and digging--selecting some journalists that he's going to protect and make witnesses out of. Going after other people. You have a trial up there where nobody can remember their name, and there are as many inconsistent statements among the prosecution witnesses as there were by Libby.
Nowhere else in America would this have occurred. And it's just not right. And so, you know, not only did I help [Scooter Libby]. I will continue to help him."
And if that assistance damages his presidential prospects? Too bad. He's helping anyway.