Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

“He Is An Innocent Man And He Has Been Wrongly And Unfairly Accused”

by digby

Here’s Fox News’ Libby trial story on Brit Hume’s show tonight. It starts off with the right lede, but goes downhill from there:

Hume: An attorney for former white house aide Scooter Libby said Libby feared the whtie house was trying to use him as a scapegoat in the investigation into the leaking of a cia employees name. That contention was a key point during opening statements in Libby’s perjury trial. Chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle has the story:

Video:

Reporter: Ready for opening statements Mr Fitzgerald?

Angle: Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was tight lipped as he arrived for opening statements, a day that would be devoted to competing conspiracy theories. Once in the courtroom, Fitzgerald spent an hour laying out what he described as an administration effort to beat back critics of the Iraq war, in this case former ambassador Joe Wilson who wrote a New York Times op-ed accusing the administration of twisting the intelligence on Iraq to justify the war. Fitzgerald argued Scooter Libby, as part of a White House push back, sought to punish Wilson by knowingly exposing his wife Valerie Plame who worked at the CIA then lied about it as Fitzgerald charged when announcing the indictment.

Video:

Fitzgerald: We need to know the truth. And anyone who goes into a Grand Jury and lies, obstructs or impedes the investigation has committed a serious crime.

Angle: When it was his turn, Libby’s lawyer Ted Wells flatly rejected the prosecutions claims saying “Scooter Libby is innocent,he is totally innocent, he is an innocent man and he has been wrongly and unfairly accused. This is a weak, paper thin, circumstantial case,” he went on, “about he said, she said.”

Wells said “Libby had no knowledge whether Valerie Plame’s job was classified or not, no witness will take the stand and say that,” he told the jury, “and I can’t tell you whether she was or wasn’t.”

But no one is charged with that and Wells noted Libby didn’t know that one way or the other. “People do not lie for the heck of it,” he said, “Scooter Libby did not do anything wrong. He had nothing to cover up and he had no reason to lie.”

Wells also sought to paint Libby as a victim, pointing to statements from the White House about those who might be involved in any illegal activity.

Video:

Bush: If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration

Angle: But when the White House later said that Karl Rove was not responsible, Libby told the Vice President he feared he was being cast as the scapegoat. “They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Wells quoted Libby as saying,”I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.”

As events unfolded, though, Fitzgerald did investigate Rove but decided not to indict him, and the official who first leaked Valerie Plame’s name, State department official Richard Armitage, came clean to Fitzgerald but he wasn’t indicted either.

Jim Angle, Fox News

Biased much? He picked out seven or so different quotes by Ted Wells, all of which were simultaneously printed on the screen, saying that Libby is innocent, innocent, innocent. And anyway, there wasn’t any real issue because Rove wasn’t indicted and Armitage “came clean” and admitted that he accidentally let it slip during a gossipy little hen party with Bob Woodward.

They acted very casual about the story, no biggie, nothing to see here and moved on immediately to Bush’s big speech about nothing.

This is good, though. Tweety had Trent Lott on:

Matthews: What do you think of the fact that Scooter Libby’s attorney today, Ted Wells, aimed directly at Karl Rove and said he had set up his client Scooter Libby to take the fall for that leak of the the CIA agents identifica… ID. back a couple years back.

What do you make of the charge of the president’s assistant, Scooter Libby, he’s also the Vice president’s assistant, blaming Karl Rove for shennanigans in the White House, aimed at leaving the blame for all that mess, that leak, on the vice president’s man?

Lott: I didn’t see it. But I had heard it, of course. And I’m frankly, uh, surprised that that would be what they’d say in the opening part of this trial. I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not, but certainly, uh, it’s a problem, in many ways.

Matthews: Do you think your party’s coming apart….?

Haha.

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Partial Meme Abortion

by digby

Ezra demolishes the laughable new “health care” plan that Bush reportedly plans to unveil tonight, so nobody has to spend any time even thinking about whether it might be worth meeting him “halfway” (so that he can pull the ball away, anyway.)

I’m not a health care expert, so I take the word of trustworthy wonks like Ezra about the feasibility of the plan. But I have been observing politics for a while and there is something to be said about how this pitch is going to be structured and how it will affect the upcoming health care debate.

First, Bush and the Republicans are setting up a new meme, which is that the reason that American health care is so costly is not because insurance companies are spending lots of unnecessary money on administrative costs and advertising or that the uninsured are treated late in the most expensive way possible (emergency rooms.) The reason health care costs are so high is because spoiled people are overusing the system.

This is really to say that we must save the poor put-upon insurance companies from having to pay claims to your co-worker and neighbor who goes to the doctor all the time because it’s costing you money and maybe even your own healthcare. They are planning to divide Americans along lines of healthy and sick, young and old, those with good plans and those with bad ones. If nothing else it muddies the waters nicely for the insurance industry.

I don’t know if it will work, but it’s not a bad opening salvo. They need to break through the idea that the insurance companies are bad guys and sell one that the answer to the health care crisis does not lie with some form of universal coverage. They have to offer a rationale for opposing real reform. This is a first step. The plan has no chance of being enacted and they know this. They just want to start putting down some markers to derail anything significant.

We’ll have more clues about what they have in mind when we see what kind of bullspin they put on it tonight and tomorrow.

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An Inconvenient Oscar

by digby

Can I just say how thrilled I am that Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and the Melissa Etheridge song “I Need To Wake Up” from the same film are both nominated for Oscars?

Hollywood was very, very, very slow off the mark with Bush and Iraq and failed to use their power for good for much too long. A bunch of people booed Michael Moore at the 2003 awards in a shameful show of chickenshit conformity. It took some Dixie Chicks, from Texas and Nashville, to show what artistic and political courage was.

So now we have an extremely important documentary (which needs to be seen by everyone on the planet) nominated for the highest achievement award the film community bestows. I know that there is a lot of controversy about how documentaries are rewarded and wehther social conscience should be a factor. But this is different. It isn’t yet another film about the holocaust, as enlightening and moving as they may be — it’s about the most important challenge humankind currently faces. The notorious Hollywood liberals should earn their keep on this one and reward this film.

And I would bet money that Melissa is going to tear the roof off when she sings her song. I grant you that it’s no “It’s Hard Out Here Fo A Pimp” but it’s a great song nonetheless.

And I would just love to see Al Gore give an oscar acceptance speech.

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Holy Moly

by digby

Norah O’Donnell is asking Andy Card and Leon Panetta if the president is going to have to ask Dick Cheney to resign as a result of what’s being alleged at the Libby Trial. (They both punted.)

If that’s the beltway chatter, look for the Republican noise machine to go into high gear. I’ll be expecting to hear rumors of Patrick Fitzgerald’s affinity for bestiality starting tomorrow — mostly from Mary matalin, Dick Cheney’s most vicious attack dog, who will be snarling like a caged beast over this (and thus will show herself an expert on the subject.)

Update: To be clear — the Republicans have to go after Fitzgerald, not Libby. He’s holding a cudgel over Cheney and Rove’s heads and they are not in much of a position to hit back at him. The GOP will try to stir up the shit and distract everyone with an attack on the prosecutor to discredit the whole case. It’s really the only move they have.

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Boot Scooter Boogie

by digby

I’ve been riveted to the FDL Libby liveblogging all morning, and if you have an interest in this case you should go over and check it out. Fascinating stuff. The prosecution is pretty much saying that Cheney directed Libby to do whatever he did. It’s pretty amazing. (Atrios has the transcript of David Shuster’s MSNBC report here.)

But I was most intrigued by the fact that it looks like Libby is throwing Karl Rove under a bus — and we are getting a look inside a White House that is divided between the VP’s power center and the president. Very interesting.

MSNBC had a chyron that said Libby’s lawyer put it this way: “Libby was sacrificed to protect Karl Rove.”

Oooh.

From Marcy Wheeler’s liveblog:

Mr. Libby was not concerned about losing his job. He was concerned about being set up. He was concerned about being the scapegoat.

Mr. Libby said to the VP, “I think the WH, people are trying to set me up, people want me to be the scapegoat. people in the WH want me to protect Karl Rove.” [Swopa–you owe me dinner.]

Cheney made notes of what Libby said. Notes show Libby telling VP that he was not involved in leak. [oops, Wells, accidentally said, “not involved in leak to Karl Rove.”

Cheney’s note: “Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”

The person who was to be protected was Karl Rove. Karl Rove was President Bush’s right hand person. Karl Rove was the person most responsible for making sure Bush stayed in office. He had to be protected. The person who was to be sacrificed.

And here I always thought the VP’s office was part of the White House.

I suspect that when the history is written we will find more and more proof that Vice President Cheney has been running a shadow government from the very beginning and that much of the malfeasance of this era is a result of incompetent and competing power centers vying for supremacy. It begins to explain the unprecedented level of faulty reasoning and epic mistakes coming from the one administration.

It’s kind of funny that Cheney is calling Rove incompetent in this matter. When it comes to lying and obstruction (the skills required for this cover Cheney’s ass operation), Karl Rove is a consummate professional and Scooter Libby is a joke.

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Choice Quotes

by digby

Due to unavoidable problems I was unable to “blog for choice” today as I would have liked. But I have written reams about the issue over the years I’ve been doing this blog and my views are well known.

I come at it first from a fundamental belief in civil liberties. It’s clear what the “right to life” agenda is and it has nothing to do with the fetus these people pretend to care so much for (until its born.) It has to do with sexual behavior. I wrote back in 2005:

I believe that a woman’s right to choose gets to the very heart of what it means to be an autonomous, free human being. Control of one’s own body is fundamental to individual liberty. If the church believes that abortion is morally wrong it should instruct its voluntary membership not to do it. Individuals must always be allowed to follow their own consciences. But there should be no legal coercion on such a morally complex personal matter.

The government could be called upon to arbitrate this complicated issue only if the fetus had an absolutely equal right to life as the woman in whose body it lives. But there is no argument about that. There is almost nobody who believes that an abortion is wrong if the life of the woman is at stake. Indeed, the vast majority (80%+) of Americans believe that abortion should be available at least in cases of rape or incest, so it is clear that the “abortion is murder” argument is illegitimate. No one can believe that it is moral to murder a person because of the way he or she was conceived, or by whom.

Therefore, the right of the fetus is not the real issue — the reasons a woman wants an abortion are the issue. This leads us to ask which particular circumstances are so difficult for a woman that she may be allowed to have an abortion. 80% or so of Americans think that rape or incest are such circumstances. But how about a failing, abusive marriage? A terminal illness? Five other children and no job? Being 43 years old and carrying a child with serious birth defects? Being a foolish 15 year old girl in love? Should we make exceptions for some of those? Any of them? Who decides? You? Me? John Roberts?

This isn’t about murder and it isn’t about the right of the fetus. It’s clearly about controlling women’s personal moral behavior. I don’t think the government has any business doing that.

This is actually a fundamental principle of the Republican party. I wrote back in 2003:

The GOP is revealing itself as the anti-privacy party. They are enabling the state to rummage through everybody’s medical records, they want corporations to be allowed to buy and sell your purchase records and any other information they may have, they are more interested in medical marijuana than the serious issue of identity theft, and they want to make permanent the ill considered Patriot Act which gave the government vast new surveillance powers.

Now, along comes Lil’ Ricky telling a reporter outright that he doesn’t believe there is any right to privacy (an article of faith in the anti-abortion cult), that he thinks gay civil rights are a slippery slope to perversion and that he further believes his view of sexual morality should be enshrined as the law of the land for everybody.

This desire and ability to invade the homes and private lives of our citizens is UnAmerican. It goes against every tenet of freedom that George W. Bush constantly preaches about, particularly the All American belief in individualism and the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Who the hell gave John Ashcroft and Rick Santorum and Jack Welch and Dick Cheney the right to information about me without my permission, to investigate me without probable cause or to tell me what I can do in my own home?

The Republicans do not believe in freedom any more than they believe in equality. This negation of the right to be left alone is coming from all GOP quarters — religious, government and corporate and it is a potent example of their lack of patriotism and any sincere belief in traditional American values. Just what do they think liberty consists of? The freedom to be harassed and coerced by every interest group in the Republican Party until you either join up or shoot yourself in the head?

Sometimes, I think that last isn’t so far fetched. I see a lot of danger ahead for a woman’s right to choose, coming not only from the right but from the Democratic party. And some of it, I think, comes from the fact that the right has simply worn down the establishment elites (who never cared that much about it in the first place) with such an incessant uproar about sex and ickyness and embryos, that they are now ready to throw in the towel. It’s an emerging rightwing model for rolling back progress.

Sadly, I think a powerful new interest group of anti-abortion crusaders in sheep’s clothing are at work within the Democratic Party. I wrote last month:

What we are seeing is a new pincer strategy, with a slow, relentless mainstreaming of the liberal pro-life(and cowardly politicians’) rhetoric which is intended to make abortion a source of shame and guilt so they can tut-tut about it in church — and the ongoing onslaught of the conservative anti-choice agenda which is intended to enshrine the fetus as a full human with rights that trump the irrelevant vessel it lives inside of. The woman with an unwanted pregnancy is getting squeezed by everybody now.

[…]

Abortion is a messy fight, nobody disputes that. I’m all for contraception and sex education and all the other things that these abortion “reducers” are pushing. But it appears to me as if that’s mainly a political ploy to appease the pro-choice crowd into believing that if they just give up a little here and there, the basic right will be preserved. It will not happen that way. With all this talk of “reducing,” and “rare” and fetal pain and snowflake babies and all the rest, they are helping the right prepare the ground for a full outlawing of abortion if Roe is overturned. They aren’t even trying to make the fundamental argument anymore.

I’m a big believer in the fundamental argument which is that if women don’t own their own bodies they are not free. It’s just that simple.

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Electability

by digby

Everyone’s already said what needs to be said about this, but I’d just like to add one other thing. Talking about “electability” is advanced process talk and process talk is cheap and it’s a way of distancing candidates from voters. I’m against it. But I’m not sure, having read the article this post was based upon, that it really was about electability.

Judging solely from the quotes and not the reporter’s interpretation of events, it appears to me that Mark Penn was trying to beat back a media narrative that said Clinton was unelectable because of her negatives. It seemed to me that they were trying to rebut that by saying that it’s her experience in the national spotlight that created those negatives and a national spotlight will create those negatives in anybody who enters it, so it’s not a relevant factor. Maybe he said something more specific about Obama being unelectable, but I didn’t get that from the quotes.

I can’t blame her team for trying to convince people that Hillary is capable of withstanding the beating that the Republicans are about to inflict. It’s a powerful argument that I’m sure they know they need to make explicitly. In conversations in RL, I’ve found people’s instinct is to be immediately exhausted by the thought of another round of non-stop Clinton character assassination. But when you mention that there’s nothing new to learn about her after all those years of investigations and smears, people agree that she might just be the “cleanest” candidate in that way — no surprises. (Gore has that advantage, as well, in my conversations.)

I think we are all going to have to gird ourselves for the fact that Democrats are going to be beating up on each other for the next year at least.(It’s a horrible, horrible time and I actually hate it.) But there’s no other way. My position is that primaries require us to be vigilant in pointing out when candidates cross the line into character assassination or right wing memes that harm the party. (I agree that “electability” is a dangerous meme that makes it look like Democrats don’t care about anything but winning.) I will not hesitate to point it out when I see it and as I said, I hate process talk and I’ll point that out as well. These are bad habits that I think many pols and their handlers have internalized and we can help them see it when they are doing it. But we can’t make them be nice to one another. This is tough bigtime politics and it’s an open field that’s going to get very ugly before it’s done.

Based on that article I honestly don’t think this was one of those “electability” arguments. I think it was a defensive argument against an emergent media meme, which all candidates have to do.

If someone knows what was actually said in that call and I’m all wet, I’ll be more than happy to correct this post.

FYI: I am not working for any candidate and just because an ad appears on my site doesn’t mean that I’m endorsing them any more than I’m endorsing Leonardo DiCaprio (although I might come out for him later.) My opinions are all mine, I tell you, mine.

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Big Babies

by digby

Via TBOGG, this is the funniest thing I’ve read in weeks:

I yield to no-one in my respect for the Clintons’ ruthless brutal demolition of Newt, and that guy who succeeded Newt for 20 minutes, and Gennifer and Kathleen and all the rest.

Oh the humanity! Poor, brave little Newtie was brutalized by the howwible Clintons. (Never mind the criminality, hypocrisy and overall ineffectiveness that led him to be stabbed in the back by his own revolutionary guard…)

Newt Gingrich almost single-handedly turned our politics into the putrid, rancid sewer it is today. That the right is now serving that merciless thug up as another of their helpless victims is more evidence of the severe, psychological disturbance that permeates their thinking.

*If you ever get a chance to see the documentary “The Rise And Fall Of Newt Gingrich”, do. (Here’s a review.) It’s an incredible look at Newt during the 1998 elections when he confidently predicted a 30 to 40 seat gain and instead they ended up losing 5. That (and his own caucus gunning for him) is what ultimately cost him his speakership. He and the Republicans brutally demolished themselves.

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Stonewall

by digby

This is outrageous and it’s probably an excellent example of how the administration is going to handle oversight. They will just drag things out until they are safely out of office unless the Democrats get very, very nasty:

Back in July, I reported that, in spite of pressure from CIA analysts, intelligence czar John Negroponte was blocking a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The CIA describes an NIE as “the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue,” and a fresh one was badly needed because the last one on Iraq, which was compiled between 2004 and 2006 and leaked to the New York Times last September, had become outdated. Negroponte was said to fear that given the worsening situation in Iraq a new NIE would, of necessity, be deeply pessimistic, and that such an assessment might get leaked and embarrass the Bush Administration during last fall’s elections.

[…]

The situation came to a head last week, during a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This committee expected to be briefed on the long-awaited NIE by an official from the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which coordinates NIEs by gathering input from all of the nation’s various intelligence agencies. But the NIC official turned up empty-handed and told the committee that the intelligence community hadn’t been able to complete the NIE because it had been dealing with the many demands placed upon it by the Bush Administration to help prepare the new military strategy on Iraq. He then said that not all of the relevant agencies had contributed to the NIE, which has made it impossible to put together a finished product.

Apparently these “dog ate my homework” alibis were badly received by both the Democrats and the Republicans on the Committee, and those in attendance now believe that senior intelligence officials are stalling because an NIE will be bleak enough to present a significant political liability.

Yah think?

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Elevator Pitch

by digby

Chuck Shumer says:

I know what you’re thinking. “Hurry up, Schumer! What are the eight words that will save the Democratic Party?”

The truth is, the eight words are far more elusive than you might imagine.

Believe me, I’ve spent two years trying to find them. Slogans are easy. Empty promises, like “better health care,” are easy. But they don’t stand for anything; they’re typical political b.s. To generate our words, we need concrete ideas that clearly and concisely communicate our values. It’s not yet possible for Democrats to boil down our core ideology into eight words. That’s not a knock on Democrats. It took Republicans years to develop theirs. The eight words are the end result, not the beginning of the process.

In part of my book, “Positively American,” I try to start the process by presenting 11 goals, which I call “The 50 Percent Solution.” Taken together, these ideas could help define what Democrats stand for. In the book, I explain each goal, how we can achieve it and why it is important to the Baileys. For example, Democrats should commit to increasing reading and math scores 50 percent by dramatically increasing federal involvement, and funding, in public schools. We should increase the number of college graduates by 50 percent. We should call for reducing illegal immigration by at least 50 percent and increasing legal immigration. We should cut our dependence on foreign oil by 50 percent, and reduce cancer mortality, abortions and childhood obesity each by 50 percent. We should increase our ability to fight terrorism by 50 percent. Sounds like a lot. It is. Together, we can do it—and more. Families, from Appleby to Bailey to Zutter, deserve no less.

What can we predict would be the Republican response?

Only a Democrat thinks in halfway measures. America is worth a 100% effort and that’s what you get from the Republican Party. We are 100% committed to national security, family values, low taxes and small government.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for Dems to understand that political sloganeering and rhetoric are not about 10 point plans and campaign promises. They are appeals to values, hopes, fears, identity and aspiration.

And even when the Democrats do get closer to that concept, (as with their slogan, “together, we can do better”) they miss the point. Doing “better” isn’t an aspiration. Americans want to be the best. Or at least they want their leaders to aspire to it even if they know that it’s not always possible.

Like, for instance, simply proclaiming that Democrats believe in “universal health care” not “better health care” which is, as he says, meaningless. What “universal health care” says is that Democrats believe that all Americans have a right to medical care, regardless of how much money they have. It’s a reflection of our values — that no American should have to face losing their very lives or ability to work and thrive because life has dealt them a bad hand and they are without insurance. There are many good practical arguments as to why we should have it but they’re not meaningful on an emotional level. Make the Republicans argue that some people don’t have a right to health care. (There are some Americans who are comfortable with that, but they are not a majority. There but for the grace of God and all that…)

Shumer has his talents, I’m sure. Rhetoric isn’t one of them. Americans will not identify with a party that only aims for 50%. It’s not in the national character.

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