I just said it ....
However, she says it better, so I'm reprinting this in its entirety without permission although I will put forth the offer of remuneration in the form of dinner for two at Luger's.
EE-Aw!
SHOOTING ELEPHANTS IN A BARREL
Wed Mar 7, 6:41 PM ET
Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.
It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame's name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department's Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it.
With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House officials to make statements under oath and hoping some of their recollections would end up conflicting with other witness recollections, so he could charge some Republican with "perjury" and enjoy the fawning media attention.
As a result, Libby is now a convicted felon for having a faulty memory of the person who first told him that Joe Wilson (news, bio, voting record) was a delusional boob who lied about his wife sending him to Niger.
This makes it official: It's illegal to be Republican.
Since Teddy Kennedy walked away from a dead girl with only a wrist slap (which was knocked down to a mild talking-to, plus time served: zero), Democrats have apparently become a protected class in America, immune from criminal prosecution no matter what they do.
As a result, Democrats have run wild, accepting bribes, destroying classified information, lying under oath, molesting interns, driving under the influence, obstructing justice and engaging in sex with underage girls, among other things.
Meanwhile, conservatives of any importance constantly have to spend millions of dollars defending themselves from utterly frivolous criminal prosecutions. Everything is illegal, but only Republicans get prosecuted.
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was subjected to a three-year criminal investigation for allegedly buying prescription drugs illegally to treat chronic back pain. Despite the witch-hunt, Democrat prosecutor Barry E. Krischer never turned up a crime.
Even if he had, to quote liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz: "Generally, people who illegally buy prescription drugs are not prosecuted." Unless they're Republicans.
The vindictive prosecution of Limbaugh finally ended last year with a plea bargain in which Limbaugh did not admit guilt. Gosh, don't you feel safer now? I know I do.
In another prescription drug case with a different result, last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) (Democrat), apparently high as a kite on prescription drugs, crashed a car on Capitol Hill at 3 a.m. That's abuse of prescription drugs (BEGIN ITAS) plus a DUI offense. Result: no charges whatsoever and one day of press on Fox News Channel.
I suppose one could argue those were different jurisdictions. How about the same jurisdiction?
In 2006, Democrat and major Clinton contributor Jeffrey Epstein was nabbed in Palm Beach in a massive police investigation into his hiring of local underage schoolgirls for sex, which I'm told used to be a violation of some kind of statute in the Palm Beach area.
The police presented Limbaugh prosecutor Krischer with boatloads of evidence, including the videotaped statements of five of Epstein's alleged victims, the procurer of the girls for Epstein and 16 other witnesses.
But the same prosecutor who spent three years maniacally investigating Limbaugh's alleged misuse of back-pain pills refused to bring statutory rape charges against a Clinton contributor. Enraging the police, who had spent months on the investigation, Krischer let Epstein off after a few hours on a single count of solicitation of prostitution. The Clinton supporter walked, and his victims were branded as whores.
The Republican former House Whip Tom DeLay is currently under indictment for a minor campaign finance violation. Democratic prosecutor Ronnie Earle had to empanel six grand juries before he could find one to indict DeLay on these pathetic charges -- and this is in Austin, Texas (the Upper West Side with better-looking people).
That final grand jury was so eager to indict DeLay that it indicted him on one charge that was not even a crime -- and which has since been tossed out by the courts.
After winning his primary despite the indictment, DeLay decided to withdraw from the race rather than campaign under a cloud of suspicion, and Republicans lost one of their strongest champions in Congress.
Compare DeLay's case with that of Rep. William "The Refrigerator" Jefferson, Democrat. Two years ago, an FBI investigation caught Jefferson on videotape taking $100,000 in bribe money. When the FBI searched Jefferson's house, they found $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer. Two people have already pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson the bribe money.
Two years later, Bush's Justice Department still has taken no action against Jefferson. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) recently put Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) on the Homeland Security Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), Democrat, engaged in a complicated land swindle, buying a parcel of land for $400,000 and selling it for over $1 million a few years later. (At least it wasn't cattle futures!)
Reid also received more than four times as much money from Jack Abramoff (nearly $70,000) as Tom DeLay ($15,000). DeLay returned the money; Reid refuses to do so. Why should he? He's a Democrat.
Former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger literally received a sentence of community service for stuffing classified national security documents in his pants and then destroying them -- big, fat federal felonies.
But Scooter Libby is facing real prison time for forgetting who told him about some bozo's wife.
Bill Clinton was not even prosecuted for obstruction of justice offenses so egregious that the entire Supreme Court staged a historic boycott of his State of the Union address in 2000.
By contrast, Linda Tripp, whose only mistake was befriending the office hosebag and then declining to perjure herself, spent millions on lawyers to defend a harassment prosecution based on far-fetched interpretations of state wiretapping laws.
Liberal law professors currently warning about the "high price" of pursuing terrorists under the Patriot Act had nothing but blood lust for Tripp one year after Clinton was impeached (Steven Lubet, "Linda Tripp Deserves to be Prosecuted," New York Times, 8/25/99).
Criminal prosecution is a surrogate for political warfare, but in this war, Republicans are gutless appeasers.
Bush has got to pardon Libby.
Ann Coulter
27 comments:
It could work out if the appeals expire in about a year, the president pardons libby and hillary is the dem nominee. Then it will open the whole discussion and she'll be forced to either defend or condemn the ridiculous pardons that her husband gave to contributors.
Screw that. Bush needs to pardon him today. As many commentators have already pointed out this had nothing to do with Scooter and/or Plame this was about Iraq and if Bush still thinks he has taken the right course of action he needs to do the right thing by Scooter.
However I think it wont be necessary if his lawyers have half a brain. The jurors have admitted as much that they didnt convict Libby they convicted Rove/Cheney by proxy and one has even gone so far as to call for his pardon. Perhaps they are not familiar with how the legal system works. This entire affair smacks of a mistrial, but as I and Ann have pointed out, since he's GOP --fairness and justice are renedered moot.
Valerie Plame was a covert agent, according to the Special Prosecutor, the Judge and the CIA.
Robert Richer, former No. 2 in the CIA's clandestine service.
"Someone made a conscious decision to disclose the identity of an operative working undercover," Richer says. "And I think that they should be held accountable. It is a criminal offense."
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7748554)
Ann Coulter is a lying bitch.
Whats your point?
That has nothing to do with this case.
Try to stick to the facts.
Ann Coulter said Valerie Plame was not a covert agent. I was responding to that.
There was no crime until there was an investigation and even then there was no crime.
Libby says he heard it from russert, russert says he didn't know, but his minions said they knew the whole time. So is russert lying? did he not remember? did libby hear it from david gregory or ari fleischer who both admitted that they knew and talked about it before the novack article?
what about Andrea Mitchell? she works directly for russert and she said the wilson-plame connection was common knowledge, and then later she said she misspoke???? well maybe she did, but she wasn't under oath so she's allowed to either a)lie or b) misspeak or be guilty of a bad memory.
This was a witch hunt for a federal prosecutor who had had run ins with libby in the past and lost.
I personally don't care for libby since he was defending the Mark Rich pardon (against fitzgerald) but that doesn't mean he should go to jail for not committing a crime.
She wasn't a covert agent.
a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say.
According to Plames HUSBAND JOE WILSON IN HIS BOOK HE WRITES:
In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.
That's 6 years before novacks column.
It seems to me that you are attempting a narrow, legalistic defense of outing Plame. The says she must have "served" overseas. She went on trips representing Brewster-Jennings in 2001-3.If I were Libby's lawyer I would be making the same argument you are.
What cannot be disputed is that her status was classified. Also, obviously the fact that Brewster-Jennings was a CIA cover was classified, a fact that you have not addressed. Plame had worked on counterproliferation and WMDs. She had recruited agents and assets. She was outed for political reasons. You do not seem to have a problem with that.
Novak had two sources. We now know who they were, Armitage and, a day later confirmation by Karl Rove. Whey didn't Rove tell Novak that that he shouldn't print that, it was classified? Why is Rove still working for the White House?
Perjury and obstruction of justice are serious crimes. Maybe not as big as lying about a blow job in a civil case, but not something a prosecutor can ignore. I sympathize with Libby. He is the designated fall guy, and fell on his sword for Cheney and Rove.
Why are you even still talking about this? Fitz knew that no crime was committed regarding Plame's identity. If there was you can be rest assured he would have filed charges. Case closed.
So Fitz made some bogus ones up to "get" someone. As PJB suggested the other night, never trust an Irishman thats still single in his 40's.
Do you understand the term "obstruction of justice"?
Karl Rove leaked classified information.Or are you going to tell me everyone knew Brewster-Jennings was CIA all along? He should thank his lucky stars (and Scooter Libby) that he is not going to prison. Why does he still have a job? How you can defend such slime is beyond me.
Rove was the leak says who?
Theres a reason no charges were brought, because there was no crime committed.
What part of that dont you understand?
Try to deal with the facts of this case. If you want to just throw around unsubstantiated allegations based on heresy.... well you know where to find the kos.
How do I know that Rove was the second source? It came out at the trial. I quoted this yesterday, from one of the jurors:
"Novak was the first to out Mrs. Wilson. In his July 14 syndicated column he called her an "agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." ...He was given that information by Karl Rove and the State Department's Richard Armitage."
Karl Rove was the second source. Fitzgerald says the reason no charges were brought was because of perjury and obstruction of justice.
....and once again.
Whats your point?
Nobody "perjured" themselves or "obstructed justice" defending Armitage. So why werent charges filed against him????
There were no charges filed because there were no crimes committed. Its elementary really.
Now take a deep breath and go throw a few at your Rove dartboard.
My point is that Rove revealed classified information, outed an agent, lied and obstructed justice, for political reasons. You so-called conservatives always call liberals traitors, and then defend the real traitors.
Well then youre point is wrong.
"but as I and Ann have pointed out, since he's GOP --fairness and justice are renedered moot."
yeah right. talk about having a 'victim mentality' ... i thought that was the bailiwick of the democrat party ... oh, i forgot, be a victim only when it suits your purposes.
sickening.
I figured Id be called out on that. I wasnt clear enough.
My point is that "justice" seems to only apply to the GOP in the majority of cases. Not playing the victim/martyr game here. Its the truth. Readers of the Aurora know that I call out both sides. I think the Duke and Jack got what they deserved and am pissed off that Foley isnt in prison, but there can be no denying that the scales of "justice" tilt one way.
As just one example if Jefferson was GOP you know damn well he wouldve been forced to step down by now.
If you cant acknowledge that, well then thats sickening.
Jefferson should step down. Karl Rove should be fired. Dick Cheney should resign.
I agree Cheney should resign and Duncan Hunter named as his replacement. Give the best candidate a fighting chance in '08.
I see from his website that Hunter wants to "guarantee all constitutional rights and protections, including life, to the unborn." Would that include the right to free speech and the right to bear arms?
Let me sum this up.
FACT: Armitage told novack about plame
FACT: Fitzgerald knew this BEFORE he ever spoke to libby
FACT: No charges were filed against Armitage
These are facts that are not disputed by anyone. Not even the libs. SO....
Logic would dictate that if there was no charges filed against Armitage, then there was no crime committed by revealing Plames identity.
Stay with me.....
FACT: Libby didn't tell novack about plame.
FACT: Rove did not tell novack about plame
FACT: Ari Fleischer was given immunity and then testified under oath that he spoke to Dick Gregory about Plame
FACT: Gregory works directly for Tim Russert
FACT: Andrea Mitchell works directly for Tim Russert and said it was common knowledge amongst the washington journalists that Plame and Wilson were married and that Plame sent Wilson to Niger (she later recanted)
FACT: Libby said he heard about Plame from Russert during a phone conversation about Chris Matthews
FACT: Russert claimed that even though his subordinates knew all about it, he couldn't have told Libby because he didn't know.
So here's what we know. Russerts testimony made Libby a liar in the eyes of the jury. I won't be so bold as to say it's a fact that Russert was lying, but i can't imagine that he didn't know something that his direct subordinates admitted to knowing. Maybe he forgot when he heard, maybe Libby heard it from Gregory and got mixed up, but here's the last fact that we know
FACT: There was NO crime until there was an investigation. And even the "crime" that Libby was convicted of is suspect because it could be easily explained by a bad memory.
Armitage may not have known Plame's covert status or Fitzgerald might have not been able to prove he knew it. Rove did. Rove did confirm what Armitage told Novak. Rove was the second source. That fact seems to escape you. Libby lied and obstructed justice to protect Cheney. You say "bad memory" but the jury heard all the evidence and said "perjury" and "obstruction of justice."
Also the statement that because no one is indicted means there is no crime is absurd. If someone is murdered and no one is indicted, does that mean there is no crime?
Gary you're whole statement is my point.
Rove new plames status, admitted (without any immunity) that he was the second source but still wasn't charged with a crime..... BUT THERE WAS ONE???
So Fitzgerald had Rove admitting to committing a crime and yet never charged him with anything because...........?
Let me help you with that one gary because simple logic seems to escape you conspiracy guys.......THERE WAS NO CRIME.
If Plame had been undercover Fitzgerald would have indicted Rove and Armitage whether they said they knew her status or not.
So he kept going with the investigation even though he knew from day one who the source was, and he knew there was no crime! Why would he do that?
My theory is that it was a witch hunt to try to catch Rove or Cheney in a lie. I can't prove that but that's my theory.
Fitzgerald said that Plame was undercover, as did the judge and the CIA. Kind of blows your theory out of the water. Difficult crime to prove though, from what I've read. Rove is a slippery son of a bitch, like catching a greased pig. Five appearances before the grand jury and he managed to avoid indictment, which is a shame.
Anyway, perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes. Ask Scooter Libby.
Fitzgerald said, someone from the cia said, russert said, wilson said, etc...
What did they do?
Armitage was the source, he wasn't even called to testify! Forget about indicting him!
So again gary i'll ask you even though i know you won't/can't answer. If telling people about valerie plame was a crime, why didn't fitzgerald prosecute ANYONE for it? Why didn't he charge anyone with it? It's a bigger crime than perjury or obstruction of justice! He had the confession of the perpetrator so why isn't Armitage in jail?
Libby is the victim of a partisan witch hunt.
I don't know why Fitzgerald didn't indict anyone. The statute is a difficult one to prove. People lied and obstructed justice making his job harder.
Fitzgerald is a Republican you know.
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