In an article published yesterday, William Rivers Pitt of truthout.org provides a very interesting analysis of the events of the past week.
Some excerpts:
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Mr. Libby is in deep dung. Fitzgerald absolutely nailed his hide to the shed, detailing lie after lie after lie. From what I am given to understand, Libby intends to offer a "faulty memory" defense when he gets dropped into the skillet. Given the incredibly detailed breakdown offered by Fitzgerald in the indictment, however, one wonders how far any kind of "Duh, I forgot" argument will fly. The ball starts rolling on Thursday, when Scooter gets arraigned. Watch for a plea agreement to be made at the behest of the White House on this; the last thing George and the boys want is for all their dirty laundry to be aired before a jury of ordinary Americans. If no plea is reached, however, we may see a fight over Executive Privilege come up to keep folks like Mr. Cheney from testifying under oath and in open court. Paging Archie Cox.
With or without that testimony, Dick Cheney is smack-dab in the middle of this thing. Nicholas Kristof, whose my-sister-my-daughter-my-sister-my-daughter routine on the pages of the Times has become unutterably tiresome, managed to cough up some salient questions for the Vice President: Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador Joseph Wilson? Why did you independently ask the CIA for information about the Wilsons? Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer? Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in the CIA to journalists? When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry - allegedly committing perjury - were you aware of what he was saying? Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the summer of 2003?
"When Richard Nixon was a candidate for vice president and embroiled in scandal," concludes Kristof in his column, "he addressed the charges in his Checkers speech: 'The best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth.' (Mr. Vice President, any time a columnist quotes Nixon to you in an exhortation to be honest, you're in trouble.) Even when Spiro Agnew was embroiled in a criminal investigation, he tried to explain himself, repeatedly. Do you really want to be less forthcoming than Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew? So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign."
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At first blush, the indictment of Libby gets nowhere near the center of the issue: the lies that led to war, and the outing of a covert CIA agent to cover those lies. Yet it feels very much as if this indictment was only the first salvo in a larger barrage to come.
At a minimum, the indictment managed to wake up the Democrats. Senator Harry Reid threw down a scathing condemnation of the Bush administration and the war in a statement he read on the Senate floor on Tuesday. "This past weekend, we witnessed the indictment of I. Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff and a senior Advisor to President Bush," said Reid. "Libby is the first sitting White House staffer to be indicted in 135 years. This indictment raises very serious charges. It asserts this Administration engaged in actions that both harmed our national security and are morally repugnant. The decision to place U.S. soldiers in harm's way is the most significant responsibility the Constitution invests in the Congress. The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really about: how the Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions."
"When General Shinseki indicated several hundred thousand troops would be needed in Iraq," continued Reid, "his military career came to an end. When then OMB Director Larry Lindsay suggested the cost of this war would approach $200 billion, his career in the Administration came to an end. When U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix challenged conclusions about Saddam's WMD capabilities, the Administration pulled out his inspectors. When Nobel Prize winner and IAEA head Mohammed el-Baradei raised questions about the Administration's claims of Saddam's nuclear capabilities, the Administration attempted to remove him from his post. When Joe Wilson stated that there was no attempt by Saddam to acquire uranium from Niger, the Administration launched a vicious and coordinated campaign to demean and discredit him, going so far as to expose the fact that his wife worked as a CIA agent. This behavior is unacceptable."
Senate Democrats followed this up with a meaty threat: they will shut down the Senate every day until these issues are addressed fully and completely. Stay tuned. The next two weeks will almost certainly determine how this whole thing shakes out.
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