June 11, 2007

Scooter Libby Goes to Prison, But Have Dems Really Won a Victory?

 

Many administration critics have been beside themselves with glee about Scooter Libby’s 30-month sentence. I understand the feeling. These folks have gotten away with so much, it feels good to see them get a bit of long overdue comeuppance for so many transgressions – legal, ethical and otherwise. Certainly the outing of a covert CIA agent (one of ours no less) was one of the worst for these self-defined super-patriots.

 

Not so fast. I fear the glee may be misplaced, or at least premature. The satisfaction of administration critics is understandable. But I’m not sure this outcome is quite the comeuppance we’ve been waiting for.

 

The way it is turning out may be the outcome of a well thought-out scheme, to shield Cheney and Rove from accountability for the real crime – the outing of Valerie Plame, one bordering on treason for mortal perpetrators. Mr. Libby’s faulty memory, an apparent epidemic in the “I Can’t Recall Administration”, seems to have impeded Patrick Fitzgerald’s up-to-then very effective investigation, just as it was zeroing in on its real targets.

 

This nefarious plot has Rovian manipulation written all over it. I can hear him proposing the strategy to a concerned White House, just as the more normal folks were beginning to worry that they might have gone too far with the treasonous CIA outing. Not to worry. There is no scandal too big or unethical to be managed by the Rover, and no limits to their disdain for the public trust.

 

The sadness of Mr. Libby’s friends and admirers about his situation are also understandable. By all accounts, Mr. Libby is a decent man, one of the most decent, perhaps, of this indecent group. It was perhaps appealing that the temporary fall guy would be an anomalously good person within the group, an ironic and perhaps useful twist to the plot. And the ultimate conviction? A small inconvenience that can be rectified by swift use of the presidential pen.

 

But wait, you say. “The president could never get away with pardoning the Scooter. That would confirm everyone’s suspicions. Even this president has some ethical limits.” Anyone who believes the president will not pardon this man put your hand up now. I thought so. We may find it hard to believe what we indeed all do believe. The intense discussions within the administration, you can be sure, are about timing, not substance – the when not the if of this latest upcoming challenge to decency and the republic.

 

But can you imagine the political fallout from doing something so outrageous? It would take political chutzpah to a whole new level.

 

I’m afraid the resulting hullabaloo will become a minor setback, as the fallout over the inevitable pardon meshes into the plethora of outrages of this administration. After all, how much lower in the polls can the president fall? He’s almost down to Laura and Barney now, and the dog watchers are beginning to have their doubts about Barney.

 

The 29 percent or so that are still with the president (whoever they are) are unlikely to stray. And the rest of us – could we really think less of the administration than we do now? At least when he does something that the Congress has to approve, Republicans have to take a public stand – to desert their leader, or set themselves up for possible defeat in 2008. He can do this dirty deed all on his own. His henchmen can even criticize the act without causing political harm to the president and avoiding it for themselves.

 

Meanwhile, the policy and war that were defended by the crime that created the cycle, that led to Mr. Libby’s conviction in the first place, still goes on. U.S. deaths are passing 3,500 and counting, and Iraqi deaths are too many to accurately count. Financial cost is beyond most of our imaginations, unless we think of other potential uses for these squandered resources. And the president continues with his latest version of “Stay the course.” It is getting to be too much for many of us. This outrage, when it happens, just may make the “I word” more respectable. The additional deaths and injuries and injustice that are prevented as a result, if it does, will cause much gratitude and relief. If that happened, I might just try to pardon Mr. Libby myself.