The pardon and the ongoing fraud

Josh Marshall weighs in on the bullshit.

Another point I'm obliged to make.

Here on the Times Oped page you'll see David Brooks column claiming that the information Joe Wilson brought before the public four years ago turned out to all be a crock, a bunch of lies. And we'll let Brooks' scribble be a stand-in for what you will hear universally today from the right -- namely, that just as Scooter Libby was charged with perjury and not the underlying crime of burning an American spy, the deeper underlying offense, the lie about uranium from Africa, didn't even exist -- that at the end of the day it was revealed that Wilson's claims, which started the whole train down the tracks, were discredited as lies.

You'll even hear softer versions of this claim from mainstream media outlets not normally considered part of the rump of American conservatism.

There aren't many subjects on which I claim expertise. But this is one of them. I think I know the details of this one -- both the underlying story of the forgeries and their provenance and the epi-story of Wilson and Plame -- as well as any journalist who's written about the story. The Fitzgerald investigation is probably the part of it I know the least about, comparatively. (It is also incumbent on me to say that in the course of reporting on this story over these years I've gotten to know Joe Wilson fairly well. And I consider him a friend.)

And with that knowledge, I have to say that the claim that Wilson's charges have been discredited, disproved or even meaningfully challenged is simply false. What he said on day one is all true. It's really as simple as that.

There's a tendency, even among too many people of good faith and good politics, to shy away from asserting and admitting this simple fact because Wilson has either gone on too many TV shows or preened too much in some photo shoot. But that is disreputable and shameful. The entire record of this story has been under a systematic, unfettered and, sadly, largely unresisted attack from the right for four years. Key facts have been buried under an avalanche of misinformation. The then-chairman of the senate intelligence committee made his committee an appendage of the White House and himself the president's bawd and issued a report built on intentional falsehood and misdirection.

No one is perfect. The key dividing line is who's telling the truth and who's lying. Wilson is on the former side, his critics the latter. Everything else is triviality.

From day one this story has been about official lies -- corrupt power buttressed by fraud. Along the way it became a story about the president's hireling commentators who lost their honor by becoming part of the fraud. What Wilson said was true. His attackers are all parties to the same lie. Don't forget that.

To read Brooks' column is to read the rightwing narrative encased in amber. Wilson is a preening liar; his wife a celebrity-chasing fraud; Libby didn't expose her, so there wasn't any "underlying crime;" Fitzgerald is a partisan hitman (never mind he was appointed by a Republican); and it's all about unhinged hatred for Rove. They never get tired of trotting the narrative out and in the process they wear us out with the sheer inanity of their lies.

All is not lost though. The pardon (and I do know officially it technically wasn't, but it is a prelude for one) is drawing a bead on the administration's hypocrisy and ideological stance on sentencing guidelines for people not covering up for the president and co-president.

In commuting I. Lewis Libby Jr.’s 30-month prison sentence on Monday, President Bush drew on the same array of arguments about the federal sentencing system often made by defense lawyers — and routinely and strenuously opposed by his own Justice Department.

Critics of the system have a long list of complaints. Sentences, they say, are too harsh. Judges are allowed to take account of facts not proven to the jury. The defendant’s positive contributions are ignored, as is the collateral damage that imprisonment causes the families involved.

On Monday, Mr. Bush made use of every element of that critique in a detailed statement setting out his reasons for commuting Mr. Libby’s sentence — handing an unexpected gift to defense lawyers around the country, who scrambled to make use of the president’s arguments in their own cases.

Given the administration’s tough stand on sentencing, the president’s arguments left experts in sentencing law scratching their heads.

“The Bush administration, in some sense following the leads of three previous administrations, has repeatedly supported a federal sentencing system that is distinctly disrespectful of the very arguments that Bush has put forward in cutting Libby a break,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who writes the blog Sentencing Law and Policy.

Perhaps inadvertently, Mr. Bush’s decision to grant a commutation rather than an outright pardon has started a national conversation about sentencing generally.

“By saying that the sentence was excessive, I wonder if he understood the ramifications of saying that,” said Ellen S. Podgor, who teaches criminal law at Stetson University in St. Petersburg, Fla. “This is opening up a can of worms about federal sentencing.”

The Libby clemency will be the basis for many legal arguments, said Susan James, an Alabama lawyer representing Don E. Siegelman, the state’s former governor, who is appealing a sentence he received last week of 88 months for obstruction of justice and other offenses.

“It’s far more important than if he’d just pardoned Libby,” Ms. James said, as forgiving a given offense as an act of executive grace would have had only political repercussions. “What you’re going to see is people like me quoting President Bush in every pleading that comes across every federal judge’s desk.”

Indeed, Mr. Bush’s decision may have given birth to a new sort of legal document.

“I anticipate that we’re going to get a new motion called ‘the Libby motion,’ ” Professor Podgor said. “It will basically say, ‘My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.’ ”

Yes, George W. Bush can even fuck up a pardon.

Ah, but let's turn our attention away from "reality" found on the news pages of The Times and instead enter Maureen Dowd's fevered obsession (Time$elect) with the Clinton marriage and its relation to I. Lewis Libby.

As Bill works on The New York Times crossword puzzle, Hill tugs on the sleeve of his black shirt in what she hopes is a playful manner.

“Sweetie,” she says, smiling brightly. “Everything’s going really well. You abide by your five-minute limit and talk only about me. You’re still having a little trouble getting that adoring smile down. In fact, on our first stop you actually looked bored and fidgety while I was talking. But I think we solved that problem today by having you leave the stage as soon as I start speaking. If you can just refrain from looking so longingly at the microphone, our pas de deux will be perfect!”

Her smile fades. “Of course,” she frowns, “there was that awkward moment when I said Bush should not have commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence because he was elevating cronyism over the rule of law, and there you were, Mr. Elevate-Cronyism-Over-The-Rule-of-Law, sitting on a stool right behind me in that look-at-me Crayola yellow shirt, reminding everyone of that passel of pardons you sneaked in under the wire, including one for that fugitive tax-evader Marc Rich, whose ex-wife was your fund-raiser and whose lawyer was — can it get any worse? — Scooter Libby! And as soon as we get out of cow country, you’ve got to start dialing for dollars. How could that pest Obama outraise us by $10 million?”

Yes, of course. For Dowd it all goes back to those crappy Clintons. Because she is a valuable part of the fraud -- I used to think unwittingly, but now I'm no longer so sure -- she can be relied on to misdirect attention: Clinton did it, too, and Hillary's a fake bitch.

Dowd should read her own paper, though, because there's reality again biting her in the ass.

DAVENPORT, Iowa, July 3 — Former President Bill Clinton criticized President Bush on Tuesday for commuting the prison sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. and tried to draw a distinction from his own controversial pardons.

In Iowa to promote the presidential candidacy of his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. Clinton was asked by a radio host, David Yepsen, “You had some controversial pardons during your presidency; what’s your reaction to what President Bush did?”

“Yeah, but I think the facts were different,” Mr. Clinton said. “I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted. You’ve got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle.”

“It’s wrong to out that C.I.A. agent and wrong to try to cover it up,” Mr. Clinton added. “And no one was ever fired from the White House for doing it.”

Mr. Clinton pardoned 140 people in the final hours of his presidency, including Marc Rich, the fugitive broker who had been charged with evading tens of millions of dollars in taxes, and who was the former husband of a top donor to Democrats and Mrs. Clinton’s first Senate campaign.

Rather than tread lightly on the Libby commutation, the Clintons have chosen to confront it; Clinton advisers said there was no real alternative, because the news media would bring up the Rich pardon anyway.

It would be interesting though if the media, rather than remind us of the Marc Rich pardon (for which we don't know the full details of because G.W. Bush sealed the records), actually reminisced on a pardon far more relevant: G.H.W. Bush's pardon of the Iran-Contra felons.