10.29.05
From Patrick Fitzgerald’s news conference yesterday:
Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn’t result in a charge? I’ve been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.
If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you’d want to know why the pitcher did that. And you’d wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, I’ve got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I’m just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can.
You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter’s head. And there’s lots of shades of gray in between.
You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.
And what you’d want to do is have as much information as you could. You’d want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you’d want to know.
And then you’d make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it.
In this case, it’s a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn’t to one person. It wasn’t just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.
And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?
Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so.
But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.
Anyone who implies that charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the grand jury are not extremely serious allegations needs to read the statements above one more time.
Anyone who argues that Libby was somehow vindicated, because he was not charged with leaking classified information, needs to revisit the baseball metaphor, and to ponder Fitzgerald’s tactics.
Anyone who thinks that Patrick Fitzgerald is anything other than a straight-arrow, apolitical prosecutor with iron-clad integrity, driven only by a deep desire for truth, needs to read more about him in The Washington Post, The New York Times, or USA Today.
And anyone who claims that the White House, or anyone in danger of being charged in this investigation, is not worried about a widening inquiry that is likely to destroy any remaining shreds of credibility that the administration retains, is spinning wildly and throwing sand in your eyes.
Make no mistake: this is the beginning of the end of the Bush Administration as we know it.
And I feel fine.
UDPATE: Obviously, there is a lot of speculation and tea-leaf reading taking place based on the text of the indictments and Fitzgerald’s press conference. It remains to be seen whether Fitzgerald will turn out to be Eliot Ness or Jennie Finch. Is he testing the resilience of the Cheney firewall or pulling his punches? I’m betting on the former — Big Time.
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10.28.05
Vice-President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who also worked as an assistant to President Bush, HAS BEEN INDICTED ON FIVE COUNTS IN THE PLAME CASE.
The charges are perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the grand jury. Libby has resigned.
Rove has not been charged today, but will remain under continuing investigation by the special counsel.
illustration via kidscosmos
James Moore, writing on The Huffington Post, reminds us of the significance of these indictments (via All-Spin Zone):
Leaking the names of CIA agents is not politics; it is a crime. Lying to congress about evidence for a war is not politics; it is a crime. Failing to tell a grand jury that you met with a reporter and talked about the CIA agent is not forgetfullness; it is a crime. Deceiving your entire nation and frightening children and adults with images of nuclear explosions in order to get them to support a bloody invasion of another country is not politics; it is a crime.
Two other important reads, also via ASZ: Firedoglake, for continuing analysis of the documents released today, and Senator Kennedy’s powerful statement, posted on Eschaton.
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10.28.05
It won’t be long now . . . here’s one way to keep yourself occupied until 2pm. Well, you could also spend your time reading rumor after rumor, and leak after leak, on the internet, but what would be the fun in that?
On to the Random Ten. To play: put your digital music player on shuffle, click play, and list the first ten songs that show up. You must resist the temptation to click past the bad or embarrassing songs. Leave your list in comments or trackbacks.
Here’s my list:
1. “The Plan” — Built to Spill
2. “Luna De Margarita” — Devendra Banhart
3. “Because” — The Beatles
4. “When the Sun Shone on Vetiver” — Devendra Banhart
5. “Under the Hedge” — Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
6. “I Shall Be Released” — Bob Dylan
7. “Maggie’s Farm” — Bob Dylan
8. “Usual Dosage” Unwound
9. “Maggie’s Farm (Live)” — Bob Dylan
10. “Heart” — Stars
Favorite Song: “Maggie’s Farm”
Least Favorite Song: “Luna De Margarita”
Favorite Album: Abbey Road
What’s on your list?
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10.27.05
This seems to epitomize where we stand tonight:
Confusion reigns.
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10.27.05
AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
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10.27.05
Just sayin’ . . .
Bradley C. Bower/AP
Philadelphia City Councilman Rick Mariano (right) is assisted by his spokesman, Frank Keel, as they arrive today at federal court for Mariano’s arraignment on federal fraud and bribery charges. (Philly.com)
Ron Edmonds/AP
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, walks into the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005, using crutches. Lawyers representing key White House officials expect Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to decide this week whether to charge Libby and top presidential political adviser Karl Rove in the leak of a CIA officer’s identity. (Yahoo)
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10.27.05
Project H.O.M.E., a charitable organization that combats homelessness and poverty in this city, will hold its inaugural Young Friends Event tonight at 5:30.
Karl Martino, who founded Philly Future, wrote a moving post entitled The homeless aren’t who you think they are, which explores his own experience with homelessness, and shows why Project H.O.M.E. is so vital to this city.
I’m still not sure whether or not I can make it tonight, but even if I can’t, I’ve made plans to start volunteering with this organization. If Hurricane Katrina taught us anything, it’s that if we don’t stand together to fight poverty in this country, we’re going to fall apart.
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10.27.05
Reader Suzy Shedd pointed me to a disturbing story on Salon (ad-sponsored site pass required, but worth it) about attempts by the Department of Veterans Affairs to cut down on “fraud” among veterans who have already been approved to receive benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Writer Mark Benjamin points out that the letters sent out by the V.A. are themselves causing trauma among former soldiers, to the point where one veteran committed suicide after receiving one:
On Oct. 8, Greg Morris, 57, was found by his wife, Ginger, in their home in Chama, N.M., an old mining town of 1,250 in the Rocky Mountains. Lying at Morris’ side were a gun and his Purple Heart medal. For years, Morris had been receiving monthly V.A. benefits in compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. Next to his gun and Purple Heart was a folder of information on how the V.A. planned to review veterans who received PTSD checks to make sure those veterans really deserved the money.
Last spring, the V.A. began to quietly draw up plans to take another look at nearly 72,000 veterans who from 1999 to 2004 had been classified as disabled and unemployable because of mental trauma from war. The V.A. plan, about which Salon was the first to report on Aug. 9, would review previous decisions to grant disability benefits to veterans incapacitated by PTSD.
Veterans advocacy groups are irate, charging the department with trying to save money at the expense of the men and women traumatized by war. They say mentally troubled veterans will be shocked, hurt and afraid of losing their monthly checks.
What kind of letter could cause that much stress? Perhaps one like this:
Nesler served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971 and is coincidentally from New Mexico. His traumatic memories include a Claymore mine blasting a busload of civilians near his artillery base. He has been getting disability checks for PTSD for years.
On Aug. 11, he received a letter from the V.A. saying that his file was one of those in its review. He said the letter left him shocked, angry and afraid. The letter warns that “confirmation” of his mental wounds “had not been established” and that his file at the V.A. “does not establish that the event described by you occurred nor does the evidence in the file establish that you were present when a stressful event occurred.” (The V.A. recently determined, again, that Nesler’s claims are legitimate.)
The letters themselves generated considerable controversy. “It was like Russian roulette,” Garcia said. “You are dealing with lives. You don’t do that. You don’t just send out information to people who are suffering from some sort of mental stress saying, ‘We are going to take these benefits away.’”
To date, the inquiry has not found even one case of fraud.
A bipartisan group of Senators succeeded in attaching an amendment blocking the inquiry to the bill that funds the V.A., but it still needs to pass through a final House-Senate conference in order to appear on the final version that will arrive on President Bush’s desk.
The Salon article quotes a letter written by Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore), who strongly disapproves of the V.A.’s actions. The full text of that letter, along with remarks expressing disgust at “another cheap attempt by the Bush administration to save a few bucks at the expense of our veterans who put their lives on the line for us,” can be found on his website. He writes:
We believe it is a disservice to veterans who served our country honorably to automatically treat them with suspicion when the issue may be merely proper agency documentation. We are also concerned that by requiring veterans to once again document the stressors responsible for their PTSD diagnosis, the VA investigation will reopen the psychological wounds of war for these veterans and result in further disability. Indeed, we have already heard reports of veterans whose symptoms have markedly increased as a result of the smaller scale review. Even in the smaller scale incomplete review, our government is putting at risk the health of veterans in order to obtain a more complete paper trail to support their diagnoses. A larger review is likely to put even greater numbers of veterans at risk of additional disabilities.
It just sends a terrible message to those who are serving in the military today for the VA to attack and question whether those who served before are entitled to receive the benefits the VA itself previously approved.
It’s past time for the Bush Administration to fully support those who have been put their lives on the line for this country. Honoring the sacrifices of America’s soldiers means going beyond photo ops and pretty words — it means supporting soldiers fully during and after their service, and treating them with respect, rather than suspicion.
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10.27.05
How it was possible for my prediction of a great world series to be true, even as the White Sox completed a clean sweep of the Astros, is beyond me. As Robert Farley wrote on Lawyers, Guns & Money, this did indeed “end up being the most exciting four game sweep in the history of the World Series” (via Lance). Every game was tightly contested, and featured see-saw changes in momentum.
Of course, it was a little disconcerting to hear Series MVP Jermaine Dye send his first thanks to Chevrolet upon receiving his award. But at least he was staying true to the spirits that have guided baseball over the past four years: mindless patriotism coupled with slithering obsequiousness to large corporations.
God Bless America. And Scooter.
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10.27.05
Marking the 2000th casualty in Iraq, Operation Truth has announced a new advertising campaign aimed at changing course in Iraq, and finding an exit strategy that honors the sacrifice of those who have died in the war. (h/t to Kate)
Watch it here
Because there has to be a better way.
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