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January 26, 2007
Where's "Fair & Balanced" When You Need It? Odd News Coverage Gaps at www.scooterlibby.com
First off, thanks to Dan & the gang for inviting me to guest blog here. I'm looking forward to conversing about some mix of scholarship, current events, law schools, and whatever silliness occurs to me over the next month or so.
Don't you hate when you sign up for subscription emails from some service promising that it'll help you "keep up with developments" but then you get nothing but junk for your trouble? I'm having this trouble with Mary Matalin. Not her personally, but in her capacity as the person whose name appears on emails from the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust. For a while there, Mary was quite the aggressive and informative pen pan -- I got update emails on consecutive days on January 16th and 17th, for example, as trial approached -- but lately, it's been radio silence from her.
Might the silence have something to do with the odd coverage gaps appearing on www.scooterlibby.com, the Legal Defense Trust's Website? In a November 20th email, Mary made me a promise: "in Nov 20 email, Mary told me, “you can always keep up with developments in the case through www.ScooterLibby.com”. But the Scooter/Mary website's news coverage these days, while doing an excellent job of chronicling the prosecution's flaws and the "memory lapse" aspect of Scooter's defense, seems to omit the bombshell aspect of the case getting the most media coverage: Scooter's surprising defense that the White House sold him out to protect Karl Rove:
White House officials tried to sacrifice vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby to protect strategist Karl Rove from blame for leaking a CIA operative's identity during a political storm over the Iraq war, Libby's lawyer said Tuesday. After Libby complained "they want me to be the sacrificial lamb," Vice President Dick Cheney personally intervened to get the White House press secretary to publicly clear Libby in the leak, defense attorney Theodore Wells said in his opening statement at Libby's perjury trial. The new details of behind-the-scenes conflict at top levels of the Bush White House, along with some previously unseen blunt language from Cheney, were the high points of a dramatic day
Why am I not reading about this hot development on scooterlibby.com? Am I missing something, or wouldn't you expect the Legal Trust to want to disclose this great new defense as widely as possible to the public and its generous donors, who all seem to be stalwarts of the conservative movement like Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, several former Republican Senators, William Bennett, and, of course, my new pen pal Mary Matalin? Does anyone have a theory?
You know, when I first heard about how so many luminaries of the conservative movement were rallying behind out man Scooter, I thought that meant there was no chance Scoot would deflect blame back to President Bush. I have to hand it to Scooter's backers: it takes a generous soul and a deep conviction to the rule of law for a Republican establishment figure to offer so much backing to man whose legal defense, it now turns out, involves attacking, and exposing previously secret divides within, the Bush White House. At least this rift doesn't come at a time when the White House has other political or legal battles, say with Congress, to worry about.
Posted by Scott Moss at January 26, 2007 06:05 PM
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Comments
whooa!! a law professor guest-blogger on Concurring Opinions who is critical of conservatives and the Bush Administration?? I mean, who saw this one coming? Such a diversity of bloggers!!
And a good follow-on post would be the intellectual argument for why Pres. Clinton should not have been impeached for lying under oath BUT Scooter Libby should be on trial for supposedly lying to investigators.
Posted by: Maryland Conservatarian at January 27, 2007 12:18 AM
I actually was in favor of the Clinton impeachment; I was a plaintiff-side employment lawyer, so I was extremely offended by Clinton lying in a sex harassment suit deposition. I concede to yuo that I was virtually alone on the left on this front. But I haven't seen that many on the left getting that excited about Scooter Libby; personally, I may well buy his defense that he was the fall guy for Karl Rove.
If you want inconsistency, try "Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on perjury prosecutions":
* in 2005, when asked re Libby: "I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."
* in 1999, when asked re Clinton: "The concept of equal justice under law and the importance of absolute truth in legal proceedings is the foundation of our justice system in the courts. To say otherwise would be to severely lower the moral and legal standards of accountability that are imposed on ordinary citizens every day.... If only the President ... had said early in this episode `I cannot tell a lie,' we would not be here today."
Posted by: Scott Moss at January 27, 2007 07:53 AM
There is not necessarily an inconsistency.
Conduct that should be a criminally punishable offense is not the same as conduct that should be an impeachable offense. One could believe that Clinton's conduct was criminal and even that he should have been prosecuted (as Libby is being prosecuted) without believing that he should have been impeached and removed from office.
And descriptively, the difference between Clinton lying (even under oath) in a civil case and Libby lying to authorities in a criminal investigation is significant. There are few, if any, prosecutions for perjury in civil cases, while it is quite common in criminal cases.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman at January 28, 2007 12:09 PM
A good distinction, Howard.
Posted by: Scott Moss at January 28, 2007 03:27 PM
Fair enough I guess but descriptively, lying under oath is lying under oath...I'd be curious how many from the left would sign on to such a suggested nuance if, instead of Paula Jones as the victim of such a lie, it were the plaintiff in one of John Edwards' multi-million lawsuits or some illegal immigrant claiming housing discrimination.
Posted by: Maryland Conservatarian at January 29, 2007 05:24 PM
