Richard Cohen is Still an Idiot

Richard Cohen hops on board the Free Scooter Libby Bandwagon today. Let's take a look!

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

For the love of...does Richard Cohen not know that Fitzgerald began his investigation at the request of the CIA? Is it still 2004, where we can point fingers at the bogeymen in the "Liberal Press" whenever somebody does something we don't like? Maybe if the New York Times actually had the power to launch a criminal investigation...maybe then we'd actually get somewhere with torture, secret prisons, and the U.S. Attorney firings. Nice one, Dick.

And saying that obstructing a federal investigation is "not an entirely trivial matter" sure seems like an attempt to trivialize it...and why investigate it at all if it's just "the dark art of politics?" Oh, I don't know, maybe because politics isn't supposed to be a "dark art" in a democratic society? Maybe because in a constitutional democracy, the lights should be kept on, not off? Maybe because obstructing justice isn't supposed to be an acceptable political practice in a democracy? Then again, maybe Cohen is right...maybe we shouldn't have bothered investigating Watergate, either...I mean, after all, Nixon and his cronies were just "practicing the dark art of politics," and what's wrong with that?

Moving on, Cohen whines about Patrick Fitzgerald's bullying of poor Judy Miller and Matt Cooper...oh, pity the poor free press!

Much heroic braying turned into cries for mercy as the government bore down. As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.

Listen, Richard, I'd feel a lot worse for Judy Miller if she actually were a member of the press, but by 2003, she was barely recognizable as such. She was a mouthpiece for the administration. She printed their stories without questioning them, without performing the least bit of actual journalism to see if what she was printing might actually be true. If you want to be treated like a journalist, you have to behave like a journalist. Judy Miller's inappropriately cozy relationship with the administration is what put her into a situation that led to her incarceration.

Oh, and as for white-collar types "tend[ing] to have a morbid fear of jail," congratulations Richard, you win today's Otis Award! Because I'm sure Otis would agree that "real criminals" don't fear jail the same way that people who are "not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal" do.

As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months.

Wow, I'm glad that you've got the guts to tell it like it is, Richard! Leaking the identity of a covert agent? Hey, that's just a little gossip! What's the harm in that? It's not like loose lips sink ships or anything like that.

And hey, I'll tell you what I "thought" might be revealed if the thread was pulled: nothing...because we already know that the administration lied the nation into the Iraq War, with a whole lot of help from "journalists" like Judy "WMD" Miller and her colleagues at the "liberal" New York Times.

I'm also glad to know that the top aide to the most powerful vice president in U.S. history is now a "previously obscure government official" to you, Richard. If you didn't know who Scooter Libby was before this case broke, I guess you don't pay much attention to things here in Washington, huh?

This is precisely the sort of investigation that Jackson was warning about. It would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition -- a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. No one has yet explained, though, how Libby can express contrition and still appeal his conviction. No matter. Antiwar sanctimony excuses the inexplicable.

You're right, Richard...if the war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission really accomplished, this wouldn't have happened...because the fucking administration wouldn't have felt compelled to leak a fucking covert agent's identity in an attempt to undermine the credibility of an outspoken critic of the war...but the mission wasn't fucking accomplished, was it, so they fucking leaked, and the C.I.A. asked for an investigation, and then Scooter Libby obstructed that investigation. What part of this don't you understand?

Oh, and there was never an "additional demand that [Libby] express contrition." It's common practice in our criminal justice system that an unrepentant convicted criminal can't expect as much leniency in sentencing as a convicted criminal who accepts responsibility for their acts. I guess Scooter didn't feel like he had to express any contrition, since he's got the whole cozy Beltway establishment (that includes you, Richard) lobbying the President for a pardon or a commuted sentence. The fact that you think that Libby should have gotten some kind of special treatment at sentencing and been granted leniency without accepting responsibility just because he obstructed justice while practicing the "dark art of politics" makes me want to vomit...there, I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks, Dick.

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive -- a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act.

Wow. Um, Richard? Investigation and oversight hearings without the prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability." The government investigating potentially illegal activity carried out by the government itself is NOT the government being coercive, and it does NOT pose a threat to civil liberties: it is a necessary function of a free democratic government. I'm going to repeat myself here: investigation and oversight hearings with the subsequent prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability," and it does absolutely nothing to discourage a government that feels free to practice the "dark art of politics" in whatever ways they choose.

I don't expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath -- not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.

Yeah, why would the privileged son of a privileged son appreciate the idea of not holding someone accountable for the consequences of his illegal activities? Maybe because Bush has lived his whole life with the appreciation of this concept.

I have considered what Fitzgerald has wrought, and I can tell you that I am personally genuinely better off for his efforts. So that's at least one person, Richard, in case you're actually counting.

And my god, Richard, can we stop with the whole "underlying crime is absent" shit? For starters, Plame actually was covert at the time of the leak. Now, Fitzgerald was unable to prosecute anyone for this...hmmmm...could that, maybe, have something to do with the fact that Scooter Libby lied to investigators and the grand jury, and obstructed justice? Are you suggesting, Richard, that if a person who obstructs justice does so successfully, they should not face any prison time, because there was no "underlying crime?" Or are you suggesting that it's okay to lie to federal investigators and grand juries, and it's okay to obstruct justice, as long as what you're lying to cover up isn't ever prosecuted? Because if that's what you're saying, well, you're an idiot.