Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's right hand, author of a smutty book about underage females being forced to have sex with animals, convicted liar and, to hear the press tell it, really a good, good guy.
Undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame was outed. The conspiracy was plotted in the White House following Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, going public about what he didn't find Niger -- none of the yellowcake Bully Boy pushed in his 2003 State of the Union address -- one of the many lies in the lead up to the illegal war. Silence him, intimidate him went the cry to deploy the usual tactic used on everyone from country musicians to former insiders who left the White House and got a wee bit to chatty for Bully Boy's tastes.
A plan was hatched to leak the name of Valerie Plame. In the investigation run by Patrick Fitzgerald, two were directly implicated: Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. Further investigation would probably demonstrate Dick Cheney's was stirring the pot as well.
But Fitzgerald didn't follow up on that. He didn't follow up on much. Last week, Scooter Libby was nailed on four out of the five charges, all had to do with his statements under oath not being correct. The reasons Plame was outed? No time to care for Fitzgerald.
Mere hours after Scooter was convicted, The National Review posted there "Men in Prison are Hot!" plea to release Scooter, for the Bully Boy to pardon him. Bully Boy most likely will at some point. (And when he does, he'll still refuse to talk to the press. He'll claim that he's looking how that pardon happened and can't say anything currently except that his prayers are with Scooter's family.)
The investigation produced very little. Congress may follow it up seriously (they should). But it did accomplish a few things, the spotlight.
To review . . .
Scooter Libby is now a convicted felon. A pardon wouldn't turn back time and change that. If he does time (he should), he'll probably be able to churn out some more trashy books.
Karl Rove. It's not shaping up to be a good decade for 'Boy Geniuses.' Rove's tainted. His theatrics meant that in the 2000 campaign Bully Boy put more faith and trust in Karen Hughes than he did Rove. The reasons for that are now very clear. Having been proven to be little more than a mean spirited hack -- not the miracle worker the press wanted him to be -- Rove now faces an uncertain economic future.
Judith Miller. The most famous of them all. The 'reporter' who lost her berth at The New York Times mainly because the paper wanted a scapegoat. That's not defending Miller's writing. That is noting that despite the mini-culpa, the paper never did return to their early Iraq coverage, as promised, and try to re-evaluate. That's noting that Michael Gordon got to stay while Miller was given the heave-ho. If her career wasn't already dead, she killed in an appearence before the court room where she repeatedly look like someone who couldn't answer the easiest quceston because she either couldn't remember or she didn't know what was going around her.
And little Matter Cooper? He called a new article a 'release' when he didn't have the guts to go to jail. (Miller did.) They were in together . . . until suddenly he was facing down jail time. Matt Cooper lost his job, at Time, as well. The trial provided insight into Cooper's method of 'reporting'. From Democracy Now! March 7, 2006
MURRAY WAAS: Matt Cooper, in particular, was extraordinarily interesting, because there was a great article on Legal Times, for example, that just walked through the journalistic ethic miscues that he committed while working on this story.
AMY GOODMAN: Specifically?
MURRAY WAAS: Well, he used, for example, Libby as a -- Libby was talking to him on background or off the record or whatever, and he used him as a corroborating source, or he used information without verifying it. But one of the things these guys should have done is just have considered outright whether to publish this information at all.
Waas is writing a book on the whole Plamegate matter. In the meantime, four high fliers, untouchables, or so they thought, ready to work together. No Miller never wrote a word on Plame. Mainly because she was taken off the Iraq beat. Otherwise, we would have more I-Judith reporting on the subject. Matt Cooper? Before the 2004 elections he was happy to name Scooter. It wouldn't be until after, while facing time behind bars, that he would get honest. He covered the Plame story but never managed to tell readers the most important issue: who passed on the news to him?
Two lap dogs serving currs. Trading honesty for access. Printing whispers as truth. Along with Scooter Libby's, the jury's verdict carried a conviction ot the press. Ease on out, ease on out the door, with your head bowed in shame.
Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts.