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November 5, 2005
Just some random thoughts. . .
So I was sitting here thinking about Harry Reid’s latest stunt, which has pretty much been branded by everyone concerned with such things as a pretty silly and stupid move prone to backfire on him and the Dems in general, when a new series of thoughts emerged about what this would mean for "Scooter" Libby.
Now I'm not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to be, but it seems to me that when Harry Reid, the Senate Democrat leader gets up to the micro-phone and starts saying:
"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really about: how the Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions."
And when Fitzgerald, who actually brought forth the indictment, says:
"This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel. ... The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction. And I think anyone who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that."
All of this seems like a positive development for Libby. I'm sure it can be argued that by bringing the Libby indictment to the floor of the Senate, and to the front of the national stage, and then blatantly and grossly mischaracterizing the nature and focus of the indictment, Reid has done serious damage to the Libby's chances for a fair trial.
It's generally accepted that when an indictment is handed down or when an investigation is underway, politicians become very careful about how they speak of it. I have to qualify that, RESPONSIBLE POLITICIANS become very careful in such situations. Those merely trying to make political hay seem to totally disregard the "innocent until proven" guilty theory of law in the United States.
I'd suggest that there's a good case to be made for dismissal of the Libby indictment based on Harry Reid’s remarks on the Senate floor, or at the very least that Reid's comments open the door for Reid himself to be subpoenaed to testify.
Reid used his Senate speech to convict Libby in the court of public opinion; he's tainted the jury pool and interfered with an ongoing investigation and prosecution of an indictment. These irresponsible actions by Reid reached a widespread audience and did serious damage to Libby's case, or perhaps they actually strengthen Libby's defense that this is mere political trickery at work to try and take one indictment and characterize it to the public as something different.
I'm not sure how this will all play out, but my gut tells me that Reid is going to lose and lose bad; AGAIN with this latest stunt and that Libby will make significant gains in his defense by Reid’s reckless and inaccurate remarks. We'll see but in general, Reid's tantrum seems to be more and more a mistake with each passing day.
I understand that Reid wanted to put the Libby indictment back on the front page, and he did that, but in doing so he's opened Pandora’s Box again and those things never turn out well for those that open it. So lets rehash pre-war intelligence, lets get the Clinton White House statements on Saddam, Iraq and WMD back out into the open, lets put Kerry's and Reid's and Clinton's statements from 1998 and 1999 and 2000 back on the front page. Let's expose the Clinton CIA and their failures, but let’s also start talking again about what we actually did find. Let's talk about the thousands of liters of bacillus anthracis, let's talk about the 480 odd tons of yellowcake uranium lets talk about the 1.8 tons of low enriched uranium, lets talk about Sarin and mustard gas and most importantly lets talk about the fact that even Saddam Hussein himself believed that he had weapons of mass destruction at his disposal. And if anyone believes that THESE were to be used for legitimate purposes, I've got a bridge to sell you.
I can understand how the media didn't want to take up the task of explaining to the American public what thousands of liters of bacillus anthracis actually was and how easily a terrorist or even a rogue regime could use such products as weapons. I can almost understand why the media didn't make much hay over the 480 tons of yellowcake Saddam did have, and why exactly was he converting that yellowcake into low enriched uranium and why did he order his nuclear specialists to dismantle and bury centrifuges and plans for their use. These stories are not prone to easy sound bite parsing and their discovery would lead to a premise that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, which is not part of the media's agenda.
So let’s put Harry Reid's issue on the table, let’s look hard at what the Clinton and Bush era CIA told us, but let’s also look hard at what we actually did find and are continuing to find everyday.
Yes, I'm almost certain that Reid's tantrum is a net loss for his side of the aisle, and will only strengthen in the minds of the American public that not only was it the Law of the United States (signed by Bill Clinton) to remove Saddam, but that everything in the Iraq War Resolution was in fact justified and verified.
--Jason
Posted by JasonColeman at November 5, 2005 2:19 PM
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