Reading the headline

[bktheirregular]

You don't want to know what I think about the fate of I. Lewis Libby.

You really don't.

Apparently "justice" is something dealt out to lesser people these days?

ETA: locking it. I'm in no mood for a fight in my front yard.

Comments

[mermaidrain.livejournal.com]

I was following this case last year in one of my journalism classes. Wow. Just wow. What the crap was all that about arresting whats-her-face (whose name I'm blanking on at this moment) who didn't even HAVE notes on this whole mess?

[mal-kontent.livejournal.com]

Let’s see.

No crime was committed (Valerie Plame wasn’t actually the kind of CIA employee for whom revealing her identity would have been a statutory offense). Libby had nothing to do with leaking her name (the person who involuntarily did that, realizing what had occurred, immediately informed the prosecutor, who chose to keep the fact secret for months). Libby had a conversation with Tim Russert; Libby remembers the conversation going one way, Russert remembers it going another. Independent testimony establishes that both men have relatively normal memories: i.e., less than totally reliable, as any cop can tell you is the case for the hugest majority of witnesses.

Somebody elects to believe one version of the conversation, disregard the other version, and convict Libby of deliberate perjury for his attempts to cover up a crime that was never committed, and then sentence him to two and a half years’ prison time for this ‘perjury’. If the entire procedure had been run against one of Bill Clinton’s underlings, back when he occupied (and recreationalized inside) the Oval Office, there would be massive accusations of a witch hunt.

You’re right. This wasn’t justice. Libby should have received a full pardon … or better yet, been declared innocent, since — say this one more time — THERE WAS NO CRIME.

(frozen)

[bktheirregular]

Valerie Wilson was covert; the CIA confirms this.

It wasn't "somebody" who chose to disbelieve Mr. Libby's version of events; it was a jury of his peers who found his defense not to be credible, it was a prosecutor appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois by George W. Bush himself, and appointed as special prosecutor by Bush's own Deputy Attorney General, and the case was heard by a judge appointed to the Federal bench by George W. Bush himself. Libby's appeal to stay out of prison was denied unanimously by a panel the U.S. Court of Appeals, the majority of which was appointed by Republicans (namely, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush).

Good night, and good luck.

[preserver3.livejournal.com]

"Somebody elects to believe one version of the conversation, disregard the other version, and convict Libby of deliberate perjury"

12 of his peers after listening to actual evidence.

Even the president doesn't deny that Libby broke the law, he's just sparing him the majority of the punishment for that crime.

Flip this around. When Clinton perjured himself, you wanted him impeached, removed and thrown in jail as well. He survived because he couldn;t be removed. Libby doesn't deserve even that much protection. He was a civil servant who lied under oath.