MSM Glee Over Libby Indictment

Breathless piece from Knight Ridder today about the Scooter Libby indictments. The conclusions they are drawing from the indictments can only be attributable to:

1. Their seething disappointment over the prosecutor's failure to indict Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or George Bush.
2. Their utter inability to actually read and understand the Libby indictments.
3. Their fervid hope that the American people will believe ANYTHING, as long as it is repeated often enough and loudly enough from the MSM.

The prosecution's case against White House adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby pulls back the curtain on the Bush administration's efforts to silence its critics and challenges its rationale for war with Iraq.

Huh? But wait, there's more...

The five-count indictment raises new questions about whether Vice President Dick Cheney had any role in revealing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. A Libby trial almost certainly would delve into internal White House deliberations that could provide more embarrassment for Bush, who'd promised to bring a new ethical climate to Washington.

Bush's name doesn't appear anywhere in the 22-page indictment, but his reputation is inextricably linked to the case. Even beyond the alleged criminal wrongdoing, the indictment offers an unflattering portrait of a White House with little tolerance for dissent and a no-holds-barred attitude toward its critics.

From the New York Times:

Over a seven-week period in the spring of 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney's suite in the Old Executive Office Building appears to have served as the nerve center of an effort to gather and spread word about Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, a C.I.A. operative.

Okay, stop, now. I am laughing. "....to gather and spread word" about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame? Gather and spread word? Now THERE's an indictable offense!

But the indictment alleges that Mr. Cheney himself and others in the office took part in discussions about the origins of a trip by Mr. Wilson to Niger in 2002; about the identity of his wife, Valerie Wilson; and whether the information could be shared with reporters, in the period before it was made public in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak.

The indictment identifies the other officials only by their titles, but it clearly asserts that others involved in the discussion included David Addington, Mr. Cheney's counsel; John Hannah, deputy national security adviser; and Catherine Martin, then Mr. Cheney's press secretary.

Well, yeah. In May 2003, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times had reported that Cheney was the one who sent Wilson to Iraq. Do you think it is sinister that Cheney's reaction was to meet with his advisors to find out who REALLY sent Wilson? And learning that it was his wife, who worked for the CIA, do you think it bizarre that he would have conferred with his legal counsel to determine whether or not the information could be released?

Gee, what would YOU have done in his shoes?

What would the New York Times or Knight Ridder do if someone erroneously reported that THEY had initiated the investigation?

If you really want to separate the facts of the indictment from the breathless MSM tizzy, read the indictment yourself here.

Now, do you think this is an expose of nefarious dealings from the Bush administration to "silence its critics"? Are you scratching your head, wondering what indictment the Knight Ridder and NY Times guys read?

After reading the indictment, it appears to me that Scooter Libby is guilty of two things:

1. Lying to the media, which, according to my limited knowledge of the law, is not a crime. If we are going to make lying TO the media a crime, then we'd better make lying FROM the media a crime as well.

2. Forgetting about specifically which conversations he may have had with whom. And goodness, if THIS is a crime, most of the US population would be in jail. (And then who would be paying taxes to keep our government working doing valuable service by indicting our officials for minor infractions?)

It is very interesting that, although Fitzgerald did not bring the more serious indictments of 'outing' Valerie Plame, the MSM is acting as though he did. Maybe they had their articles all ready to run, in eager anticipation of a more serious indictment and just didn't have the heart to do a re-write.

For more on the MSM/anti-war crowd's spin on the Libby indictments as proof that there was some sort of cover-up involved in the war with Iraq, read Stephen F. Hayes' article here.


Since the left is losing the "Iraq as quagmire" argument in the face of democratic progress and free elections, they need to drag out the old "Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" argument.