SAUNDERS: Lowball, all the way around

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/13/6 | Debra J Saunders

[SmithL]

ON TUESDAY, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had to take back a key sentence in a brief he had filed earlier with the court concerning charges against Scooter Libby, former top aide to Veep Dick Cheney, for perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame. That sentence had spawned a spate of page-one Bush-bad stories.

Fitzgerald had written that President Bush had authorized Libby to tell former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about intelligence involving Saddam Hussein's attempts to procure enriched uranium in Niger, and that Libby understood he should tell Miller that an official "key judgment" affirmed the Niger story -- even though the Niger item wasn't a "key judgment" and some administration officials disputed the Niger angle. "Iraq Findings Leaked by Aide Were Disputed" read the New York Times headline.

Fitzgerald then corrected the record to read that Libby understood he could tell Miller about "key judgments" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and that the NIE reported that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

Bush-haters had pounced on the Fitzgerald brief to bolster the "Bush Lied" big lie. It starts with Ambassador Joseph Wilson's contention that the Bushies were out to punish his wife, Plame, because Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece debunked the Niger charge. The Niger story was patently false, those who accept the big lie theory say -- and the Bushies knew it.

It doesn't speak well that Fitzgerald bought into that Bush-hater spin when he wrote of the Bushies' attempts to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson. No. The Bushies weren't looking to hurt the little woman, but waging an honest challenge to the truth-impaired Wilson, and his false denial that his wife had anything to do with the CIA...

[SmithL]

...but waging an honest challenge to the truth-impaired Wilson, and his false denial that his wife had anything to do with the CIA sending him to Niger as well as reports that Cheney sent Wilson to Niger.

[bkepley]

I bet this gal gets a lot of hate mail.

[libstripper]

Fitzgerald positively runs from that issue. He wrote in last week's brief, "Defendant is not charged with knowingly disclosing classified information."

This is a huge backdown from the initial paragraphs of the indictment which state Plame's status was "classified" but do not say it was "covert." Of course the actual charges in the indictment of crimes do only relate to perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice.

[SuziQ]

If the Bushies had simply been up front and admitted they were assailing Wilson's credibility -- or if they'd just kept their mouths shut -- there probably would be no special prosecutor looking into the Plame leak, burning through unknown amounts of tax dollars and setting a dangerous precedent by jailing a journalist for not revealing her sources.

I disagree. It didn't matter what the President did, or did not do. The Democrats wanted to 'get' him during the last election. They tried everything they could, but nothing has worked. Fitzgerald is the one who needs to fold his tent and go home. The whole premise of the original case has been repudiated.

[GodfearingTexan]

good article. need more like it.

[NoStaplesPlease]

This is good news, of course, by way of bad news being wrong.

And I stayed with this Plame stuff closely last summer and into the fall... but now I just can't do it.

Those of you who can keep up, I salute you.