<p>Pure speculation, mind you, just something for you guys to discuss with your friends tonight, in between tumblers of vodka. Libby appears to be charged with lying about doing things that weren’t crimes. This makes no sense…as one internet wag points out, if true, he should use an insanity defense to get off.</p>
<p>However, it’s been insinuated that there may have been something salacious going on between Libby and Judith Miller. Maureen Dowd recently strongly implied that Miller sleeps with her powerful sources to get info. Now, follow me here: What if Libby was only lying to cover up an affair with a reporter, not to cover up the non-crime of mentioning a non-covert CIA employee to her? You know, just doing what men do to protect their wives and families. What if it was, in the end, just lying about sex? Will TheDad and the rest of you run to his defense? Discuss among yourselves, I have to go out for a while.</p>
<p>How often has this been used w/o a plea of guilty? Is there no other law that applies? Why would any smart young person ever work for the CIA after this?</p>
<p>This is a crucial piece of information. The Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not the Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but the DO, where the spies, the ‘operatives’, come from.</p>
<p>Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment."</p>
<p>– Josh Marshall</p>
<p>Libby was lying about when he knew Plame was an operative and when he told reporters what he knew. He was lying to cover up the fact that he knowingly disclosed classified information to those not authorized to receive it for the purpose of discrediting an American citizen. That, my friend, is one of the lies for which he now faces prison time, if convicted.</p>
<p>Hardly “lying about things which weren’t crimes.”</p>
<p>Why would anyone lie so often and so blatantly about something that wasn’t a crime. If he had nothing to hide there is no reason to lie.</p>
<p>Just because Libby has not been charged with a crime regarding the Espionage Act does not mean that he might not or someone else might not be in the future. Fitzgerald made it pretty clear that the alleged obstruction hindered the original intent of the investigation. He said several times that perjury and obstruction of justice are VERY serious crimes and that blowing Valerie Plame’s cover was a SERIOUS National Security issue.</p>
<p>Driver you are out to lunch on that one about Libby and Miller. The implication that you are referring to is that Judith Miller was a willing accomplice to the White House - for political reasons - not sex.</p>
<p>Hubris? Deep desire to implement plans he and Wolfie had for a geopolitical war in the Middle East? Belief that GWB was an easy pushover for said war? Smart, disciplined people do things because of pathology…Hubris is looking good to me.</p>
<p>David Gergen, a former adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, told CNN’s “Larry King Live” that indictments in the case could have an enormous impact on the Iraq war.</p>
<p>“Because if there are indictments, it will not only be people close to the president, the vice president of the United States, but they will raise questions about whether criminal acts were perpetrated to help get the country into war.”</p>
<p>Actually Hazmat, I was asking a rhetorical question in response to Driver’s excuses for Libby. I know why he lied - all of the reasons you mentioned.</p>
<p>What chokes me is the “freebie” GWB is getting outta this. Seems he has managed to distance himself and thus it is “the other guys” how convenient. The rubes right now appear to be Congress…sucked it up with a big straw.</p>
<p>No, I think this just shows that David is out to lunch. Perhaps he would like to explain the connection between (a)the war and (b)alleged lies about when or from whom one learned the identity of a spouse of a bit player AFTER the war started. This just goes to show the extent to which the left has to go to discredit the war.</p>
<p>“What if Libby was only lying to cover up an affair…”. Come on drivel you gotta do better than that. Actually, you are quite correct. In the broader picture he was lying to help cover up an “affair of state” i.e. the trail of fallacious reasons we entered into the Iraq war.</p>
<p>What will be interesting about this is whether Libby goes the John Dean route and ultimately “rats out” the rest of the rats or falls on his sword out of loyalty to W, Dick and the rest.</p>
<p>Libby has already fallen on his sword…now we wait to see how hard he will be squeezed to get the plea bargain. He is a Lifetime Civil Servant…55 years old, could still practice law, if he still had a license, or I guess he could work at Halliburton??? To practice law he must drop some kind of info to clean up his record, to make a living he will have to make a choice.</p>
<p>I doubt he’s gonna fall on his sword. He’s a Yalie, and likely has too much pride for that. And if he pleads guilty, the prosecutor is going to force him to stipulate as to what really happened anyway, to be used in future prosecutions.</p>
<p>But my betting book is open.</p>
<p>Schumer says he would have voted for the War anyway… Disgusting Democrat of the week. (they usually come in bunches)</p>
<p>My gosh, you people can be thick. Read the darn indictment. The charges have nothing to do with outing a covert agent. Nothing. They have nothing to do with the veracity of the events leading up to the war. That’s what the prosecutor said, in very plain English. He also said that there was a legitimate public legal issue in determining if national security had been compromised by Joe Wilson’s original charges, and that Libby’s deliberately false answers had held up the investigation. Eventually, they got the true answers–hence the charges–but, obviously, even with the true answers, there was no evidence of the underlying crime/s that have been at the heart of this whole farce all along. It can’t be made any plainer than that.</p>
<p>My comments on the Miller/Libby affair were a fallacious gibe at the repetitive bleat about Clinton’s willful, systematic perjury being “just about sex.” I’m sure the person to whom it was directed got the joke, just as I’m not surprised it bounced, unrecognized, off Bullwinkle’s thick antlers. Nice to see you back, Moose—safety in numbers, eh?</p>
<p>I don’t think folks here are saying that indictment is about all of “those” things. I think the discussion is about how/why it came to this. How a Yale/Columbia trained lawyer, a hawk, powerful position w/ experience…why he would have put himself into this circumstance. Did he never think the notes would come to the surface? Was he covering for others? That is what this discussion is about…not particularly the indictment.</p>
<p>I have never had thoughtful discussion cause me to be called “thick”…WOW.</p>
<p>Most people here are certainly focusing on those other things. Wishful thinking, as I have called it all along. On the other point, I completely agree, hazmat. I don’t know what Libby was thinking of. How could he not expect to be caught in what appear to be lies? That’s the real mystery, and I don’t get it either. You and others choose to impute a motive not found by a thorough prosecutor. Thick? Sorry. Unwilling to read the facts before your eyes? There is nothing to any of the stuff Joseph Wilson brought to table. Nothing. The man is about as discredited as any person could be, and yet the fever swamps are still filled with those of you who continue to believe, simply because you want so badly for it to be true.</p>
<p>Of course not–I said that the people here in this forum have imputed a motive (a coverup of a criminal conspiracy to punish Wilson by outing his CIA employee wife) to explain the mystery of why Libby apparently lied about learning of Plame from the VP, the CIA, and the State Dept. Even when armed with the corrected versions of Libby’s testimony, Fitzgerald found no reason to charge Libby with outing a covert operative.</p>
<p>Fitzgerald is a very smart man. He knows that the perjury etc. indictments are very serious crimes, and that the Yalie is uncomfortable with the idea of going to prison for even a day, no less 30 years. He likely hopes to uncover the underlying crime by forcing everyone to testify, or Libby to stipulate. Already we know that the vultures are circling above Rove, and that we are going to hear from Cheney, and from Ari Fleisher, if not sooner, then later.</p>
<p>It’s possible that Libby, Cheney, Rove, and Fleisher kept GW totally in the dark (probably not very difficult). But it’s also possible that…</p>
<p>It’s also possible that there is no underlying crime, and that Libby (and Rove, and maybe Cheney) are just fools, covering up something that didn’t need covering.</p>
<p>Place your bets - this one is going to be around for months to come!</p>