The Hearing Loss of The NY Times Editors – Scooter Libby

From the opinion makers; members of the NY Times Editorial board (italics mine):

“Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”

The NY Times Editors always “hear” things differently; why is that?

Oftentimes, too often, I find myself visiting the pages of opinion in the Times; they irk me. Perhaps it’s their smarmy, condescending tone. Maybe it’s their utter dismissal of so many pieces of a puzzle that allows them to come to their conclusions that bothers me. One has to realize that the opinion page of any paper is just that, opinion. I don’t know why, but for some inexplicable reason I expect more from what used to be a respected paper.

So much of what people read or view these days is colored with words that conjure up images the writer wants you to envision; whether this is just the writer’s flare or rather their intent to mislead isn’t often in question. When it is judged by many that say the Democrat party is soft or weak on terror and is offering legislation on a withdrawal from Iraq and a paper publishes an article on the Democrats being “aggressive and united on Iraq” we have an issue. It implies that the Democrats are kicking butt in Iraq, when in reality they are “aggressive and united on Iraq,” in their efforts aimed at withdrawal. They are actually tough cookies to the enemy, but the only enemy they appear to really have their sites on is the president and the opposing party. If they applied half their vehemence and aggression on the enemy in Iraq that they do on efforts real and perceived from the Right, we’d probably be on course doing just what so many have been screaming about with regard to us cutting back the number of troops there.

Obviously I see the paper and Democrats as being misguided when it comes to the appropriate target, but I digress as I have since roughly half-way into the second paragraph.

In the editorials run up to revealing its hearing impairment it states:

“Mr. Libby was convicted of lying to federal agents investigating the leak of the name of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Mrs. Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson, was asked to investigate a central claim in Mr. Bush’s drive to war with Iraq — whether Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa. Mr. Wilson concluded that Iraq had not done that and had the temerity to share those conclusions with the American public.

It seems clear from the record that Vice President Dick Cheney organized a campaign to discredit Mr. Wilson. And Mr. Libby, who was Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, was willing to lie to protect his boss.”

The entire “Libby Episode” was painted with he said, she said; during the course of the investigation and trial it couldn’t even be revealed whether or not Plame-Wilson had “secret” standing. The “campaign to smear” Joseph Wilson began with Wilson’s hole ridden opinion piece, where over the course of time, many details were found wanting and/or outright untruths. Plame-Wilson’s was actually outed by Richard Armitage; a fact that special prosecutor Fitzgerald was fully aware of.

Ultimately, the jury found Libby guilty of a couple of counts; so to me it seems more appropriate for the paper, whether in its opinion pages or not to take the commutation of Libby’s sentence with the details in mind. Rather, the opinion reeks of the blinding, myopic vision that has struck so many during the Bush Administration’s time in office.

A court of law found this defendant guilty; the investigation in my mind was a joke and a witchhunt which ignored so much that was revealed about the dishonesty of Joseph Wilson, which the media tended to touch on then ignore. Libby lied when his memory was compared with other’s memories, which also proved wanting. In respect for the law it could be said the president decided upon the commutation with the best (best isn’t much here) of both worlds.

This isn’t good enough to the editors and it’s a shame as it reveals their dishonesty, which continues unabated and increases in intensity with each passing day.

I offer a quote, probably an inappropriate quote based upon its origin, meaning the person who stated it will dissuade those in disagreement from viewing the quote as unworthy due to the speaker. That shouldn’t be the case, as a good quote is worthy regardless of who states it:

“The day when the network commentators and even the gentlemen of the New York Times enjoyed a form of diplomatic immunity from comment and criticism of what they said — that day is gone. . . . When their criticism becomes excessive or unjust, we shall invite them down from their ivory towers to enjoy the rough and tumble of public debate. . . . The time for blind acceptance of their opinions is past. And the time for naïve belief in their neutrality is gone.”

Spiro T. Agnew – 1969

Visit NRO for some opinion that the Times editorial board would likely find worthy of prosecution. I haven’t read them yet as I like to post in as ignorant a state as possible prior to being swayed by the argument of others.

From The Editors at NRO; “Appropriate Presidential Mercy,” and from Byron York, who by far track this whole mess better than anyone, “Why Bush Saved Libby.”

May these links not let me down.

More on the Clinton pardons here and oddly an opinion piece from the pages of The New York Times in defense of those pardons written by the man himself.

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Goldberg Feels the Wilson-Plames Pain

"Lesser mortals might have trouble sleeping at night knowing that they're having the time of their lives through a level of dishonesty dwarfing the transgressions that may send Scooter Libby to prison. But, thank goodness, the golden couple is better than that. They're troopers." - Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online

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The Tip of the Iceburg – Libby and the Veep

After searching The Corner at NRO, I found this quote from Mark Steyn, which Bill Bennett referenced in part this a.m. on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America and at The Corner regarding the Libby trial (italics mine):

“The resilience of Joe Wilson’s scam is remarkable. I’m getting gazillions of e-mails castigating me for defending Scooter Libby, a man who apparently “recklessly endangered the life of a covert agent and her fellow operatives in Africa and elsewhere”. I wish the CIA had covert agents in Niger. But it doesn’t. That’s why it has to fly in Joe Wilson to sip tea by the pool and interview bureaucrats. And the fellows the CIA does have in Africa are a very curious bunch, including a former station chief in Khartoum who subsequently signed on as a lobbyist for Sudan’s genocidal government."

"But nevertheless an anti-war deputy secretary of an anti-war department leaking to an anti-war reporter the name of an anti-war analyst who got her anti-war husband a job with an anti-war agency is supposedly an elaborate “conspiracy” by Cheney, Rove and the other warmongers. Looked at more prosaically, it’s a freak intersection of bad personnel decisions, which is one of the worst features of this presidency. So many of the Bush Administration’s wounds come from its willingness to keep the wrong people in key positions: Tenet should not have been retained at the CIA, Armitage should not have been at State.”

The driving force behind this entire fiasco is more in line with political retribution; not the political retribution that Wilson/Plame and those of the “rabid” Left claimed the Administration instigated in response to Wilson/Plames scathing editorial in The NY Times regarding his trip to Niger. But retribution for daring to challenge the status quo of the international arena; for daring to deny the veracity of a “diplomats” editorial report in, basically a political game intended to further the nation away from the truth.

The media not only jumped on the band wagon, but built and serviced it, allowing it to make its multi-year trek to the verdict that is now apparently (again?) only the “tip of the iceburg.” We are reveled with remarks from all over, including and allowing Joseph Wilson/Plame the opportunity to further his lies:

"Well, I think the President and the Vice President both owe the American people a full explanation of what they know about this matter."

Thanks to a willful disregard of Wilson’s claims by the media from the get go; Wilson can state the above and somehow oddly remain unscathed by his and the oppositions scam.

Revelations that might have widened the reality of what had happened may have been reported once by each of the media outlets yet were dropped beyond that in order to continue the scandalous and manipulative evil administration reporting going. Meanwhile, we get stories on secret CIA operations for holding individuals in Europe and leaks regarding the NSA program (which is a lesson in how to avoid any real substance), that earn their authors Pulitzers. Future stories involving Fitzgeralds prosecution and investigation always mention the administration for summarizing purposes, you know to get us up to speed if we’re slow. But each of these stories invariably ignores the questionability or at least revelations of the Wilson claims. This does a service to administration haters, which is one thing and a disservice to the public. Am I just biased or wrong? Maybe, but that’s more than the msMEDIA can say; which undeniably did not get to the bottom of the story no matter what side you stand on.

I personally, as many do, feel Libby was railroaded. However, it was for the court to decide, just like it was for OJ, regardless of how one feels about the outcome. That aside, forget about Libby for a moment, We the People, are being railroaded with partisan politics being played “as usual,” the Left (I’m sure the Right is in here as well, but being canted to the Right and need to keep my membership duties up to code, I won’t mention it) and worst of all the msMEDIA.

Why do I say “worst of all the msMEDIA?” Because they are the “self-proclaimed” watchdogs to the public good. Because they say the are not Liberally or Conservatively biased yet they do lean in a direction which to me is to the Left, but this does not matter to the ultimate point I am so poorly trying to make.

The Fourth Estate, does not contain any individuals that are voted for and/or elected by “We the People.” Yet, it is their day in and day out drone that drives what is important to us. They have chosen a mantle and deceive us and likely themselves that they are not biased and are just reporting it as they see it. To report as one “sees it,” is to report it as on “sees it;” this is not unbiased no matter how unbiased one is. To see only the administration’s “deceptive” side of the story ignores the Wilson “deceptive” side of the story. To chase leads based on an ‘anonymous’ source with possible ulterior and partisan/biased motives is to be lead by the nose after a bogeyman that may not be at all.

This entire chapter, which unfortunately is still being written (“Libby Framed Around Vile Scheming, Skip Armitage, Tie in Reagan” ignore Wilson, but include him in the stories because he started it), at full speed after the imaginary “bogeyman.” ‘Time for another and/or more investigations; you bet, and we, the msMEDIA are on it, don’t worry about a thing.’

Think the Bush Administration twists “intelligence?” Think again who exactly twists reality because it doesn’t fit into the storyline.

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The Libby Trial - Byron York at NRO

The evidence:

"had somethine and about the wilson thing and not sure if it’s ever."

The Real Issue in the Libby Trial

Byron York over at National Review Online has an interesting column regarding the Scooter Libby trial.

From NRO:

"Today the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, begins in federal court in Washington. The opening arguments follow a week of wrangling over seating a jury, a fight that went on significantly longer than either prosecution, defense, or judge estimated. And nearly every scuffle in the courtroom, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and chief defense lawyer Ted Wells argued over each prospective juror’s possible bias, served to emphasize the intensely political nature of the case. Does this potential juror believe Cheney is a liar? Does that one think the Bush administration can’t be trusted? What do they think about the case for going to war in Iraq?"

"As the selection process went on, it became clear that the biggest difference in the prosecution and defense approaches to the case can be summed up in this question: Does the most impassioned political argument of the day — the war — lie at the periphery of the case, as Fitzgerald contends, or at its heart, as Libby argues? By the end of voir dire, it was hard to deny that Libby’s argument is the more persuasive. No matter how much the prosecutor tries to frame the case as a simple question of lying under oath, this case is about the war, about people’s feelings about the war, and about the administration’s credibility over the war."

Read the rest here and do yourself a favor and visit York's archive for his coherent columns regarding the whole Plame/Wilson/Yellow Cake/Mint Julep sipping episode.