lily
03-07-2007, 02:33 AM
Pretty much sums it up (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17484687/)
Libby verdict really about Iraq war and Cheney
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC
Updated: 27 minutes ago
WASHINGTON — The ramifications of the stunning, vehement verdict in the
Scooter Libby trial - that he lied, repeatedly, big time - aren't really
about Scooter Libby at all. They are about how and why we went to war in
Iraq, and about how Vice President Dick Cheney got us there. Loyalty is
everything to President George W. Bush, and I don’t expect him to march into
Cheney’s office to demand a resignation. But the veep is a liability as
never before, and even Bush has to know that.
The Libby verdict now brackets politically – suffocates politically – the
Bush Administration’s Iraq policy. One side of the vise was already in
place: the vivid, all-too-photogenic story of the human cost of the war to
young American men and women. That, story, of course, is about Walter Reed
Army Medical Center and the shoddy care given to outpatient casualties
there. Now comes the rest of the story: lies that were told to cover up the
story of how the war was sold.
Polls show that most Americans have moved on from the question of how we got
into Iraq – and are far more concerned about how, and how quickly, we get
out. Still, the last thing the administration needed was renewed focus on
the genesis of the war.
And that is what we will get. First, Libby’s lawyers immediately announced
that he will appeal the four-count conviction for perjury, false statements
and obstruction of justice – but the likely length of that process that will
keep the story in the news.
Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will be back, wanting to know – with good
justification – what (and whom) Libby was lying to protect. Why were Cheney
and Libby so frantic to discredit the couple? Was there something more than
mere political hardball being played in this matter? What land mine had
Wilson stepped on? And, as my colleague Chris Matthews keeps asking, what
happened to the report Joe Wilson filed? If Cheney is the one who asked for
it in the first place, what did he do with it when he got it? Did President
Bush ever see it?
Expect the Democrats and their anti-war allies to do something that they
have not quite had the specific legal justification to do until now: use the
“L word”. They will conflate two things – lying about evidence for war and
lying to Patrick Fitzgerald – but no matter. They will use the Libby verdict
to pump up the volume.
But the biggest burden will fall on Cheney himself. His own Hobbesian view
of the world – that life is nasty, brutish and short – is becoming all too
personal. He had to be relieved that Prosecutor Fitzgerald described his
investigation as “inactive.” That would seem to mean that Cheney is in no
legal jeopardy.
Unless Libby, facing serious jail time (and he might well be, given the
breadth of the verdict), decides to change his story and tell us something
about Cheney we don’t know – and that the president of the United States won’t
want to hear.
Libby verdict really about Iraq war and Cheney
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC
Updated: 27 minutes ago
WASHINGTON — The ramifications of the stunning, vehement verdict in the
Scooter Libby trial - that he lied, repeatedly, big time - aren't really
about Scooter Libby at all. They are about how and why we went to war in
Iraq, and about how Vice President Dick Cheney got us there. Loyalty is
everything to President George W. Bush, and I don’t expect him to march into
Cheney’s office to demand a resignation. But the veep is a liability as
never before, and even Bush has to know that.
The Libby verdict now brackets politically – suffocates politically – the
Bush Administration’s Iraq policy. One side of the vise was already in
place: the vivid, all-too-photogenic story of the human cost of the war to
young American men and women. That, story, of course, is about Walter Reed
Army Medical Center and the shoddy care given to outpatient casualties
there. Now comes the rest of the story: lies that were told to cover up the
story of how the war was sold.
Polls show that most Americans have moved on from the question of how we got
into Iraq – and are far more concerned about how, and how quickly, we get
out. Still, the last thing the administration needed was renewed focus on
the genesis of the war.
And that is what we will get. First, Libby’s lawyers immediately announced
that he will appeal the four-count conviction for perjury, false statements
and obstruction of justice – but the likely length of that process that will
keep the story in the news.
Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will be back, wanting to know – with good
justification – what (and whom) Libby was lying to protect. Why were Cheney
and Libby so frantic to discredit the couple? Was there something more than
mere political hardball being played in this matter? What land mine had
Wilson stepped on? And, as my colleague Chris Matthews keeps asking, what
happened to the report Joe Wilson filed? If Cheney is the one who asked for
it in the first place, what did he do with it when he got it? Did President
Bush ever see it?
Expect the Democrats and their anti-war allies to do something that they
have not quite had the specific legal justification to do until now: use the
“L word”. They will conflate two things – lying about evidence for war and
lying to Patrick Fitzgerald – but no matter. They will use the Libby verdict
to pump up the volume.
But the biggest burden will fall on Cheney himself. His own Hobbesian view
of the world – that life is nasty, brutish and short – is becoming all too
personal. He had to be relieved that Prosecutor Fitzgerald described his
investigation as “inactive.” That would seem to mean that Cheney is in no
legal jeopardy.
Unless Libby, facing serious jail time (and he might well be, given the
breadth of the verdict), decides to change his story and tell us something
about Cheney we don’t know – and that the president of the United States won’t
want to hear.