Okay, I blogged it--Scooter Libby found guilty. Honestly, if you heard it here first, there's a problem. Us small bloggers have a problem in stories like this--there's little for us to add, but it feels weird to just ignore the issue.
This issue of Libby as the fall guy is a little more interesting, at least. The meme floating around the liberal blogosphere is that Libby was protecting Cheney, and it seems the jurors are of that mind as well.
Oh, and the National Review's immediate response was to demand a pardon. Because (I swear I'm not making this up), the only thing Libby was guilty of was being part of an executive branch that wasn't "unified" enough.
Come on Dave. The same logic that got Libby convicted was the logic that got Martha Stewart convicted. How can you get in trouble for lying about a crime, but not getting in trouble for the crime itself? Doesn't make a lick of sense.
ReplyDeleteJohn, you can get in trouble for lying about ANYTHING when you're under oath, including things that aren't even crimes. To my knowledge, Bill Clinton didn't commit a crime by having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, yet he still could be prosecuted for perjury for lying about it. That's what perjury MEANS.
ReplyDeleteOr for another presidential reference, Nixon didn't commit the underlying crime of the Watergate break-in, and no one's shown convincingly that he conspired to plan the break-in or knew about it before it happened. However, he had to be pardoned by Ford because Nixon obstructed justice in the investigation of the break-in. When the cops come a'knockin, you better start talkin. (Unless you're going to invoke 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.)
You can say that neither Clinton nor Nixon deserved to be prosecuted for perjury and obstruction, but you're going to get mostly Democrats to agree with you about Clinton, and almost no one to agree with you about Nixon.