The former aide to Vice President Cheney had been sentenced to 30 months in jail and a $250,000 fine before President Bush commuted the prison term, calling it "excessive." He let the fine stand, along with probation. At first Bush sounded like he thought Libby deserved to be punished, just not so much.
But the next day the White House said a full pardon had not been ruled out. If their mail is like mine, I can see why. A lot of Bush's own supporters are outraged about facts that are not really facts.
"Dear Clarence," reads one of my friendlier-sounding missives, "You have some of your facts confused. Libby was not found guilty of anything related to Valerie Plame. (Former Deputy Secretary of State) Richard Armitage was the one who leaked her name. She is not a 'covert' agent. ... Many like you who support bad things happening to this administration believe, wrongly, that she was...."
Depending on whom you talk to, Libby is either a fine public servant or an evil co-conspirator in a plot to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband. Wilson famously blew the whistle on a claim Bush made about Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions that turned out to be bogus.
Time to call in the truth squad: Contrary to the drumbeat of misinformation and disinformation that you may have heard on various talk shows, Valerie Plame was a covert agent under the relevant 1982 law that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert intelligence officer. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cleared up that dispute on May 25 in a memorandum during the sentencing phase of Libby's trial. "It was clear from very early in the investigation," he wrote, "that Ms. Wilson qualified under (the 1982 law) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press." Four days later, Fitzgerald filed an "unclassified summary" of Plame's CIA employment which described her work as including "at least seven" overseas trips as chief of a unit working on Iraq weapons issues.
And, yes, Armitage did leak Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to report it to the public. But Armitage was not the first or the only leaker. Weeks before Novak reported Plame's name in his July 14, 2003, column, Libby revealed Plame's CIA job in meetings with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on June 23 and July 8.
Novak also received confirmation of Armitage's tip from Karl Rove, Bush's senior political adviser. Rove also discussed Plame, without mentioning her name or covert status, with then-Time magazine's Matt Cooper.
But Fitzgerald's critics say he should have ended his investigation as soon as he learned that Armitage was the source of one leak, Novak's. To me, that's like telling police who have busted a teenager for marijuana they should not bother to find out who the kid's suppliers are.
"I'm no lawyer," writes a Florida reader. "But can you explain to me how someone can obstruct justice in a case where no crime was committed?"
Alas, poor Libby was snagged by a version of the old Watergate rule: It was not the initial "crime" but the cover-up that got him. To prosecute the leak of Plame's identity, Fitzgerald could not find enough evidence to meet the law's high threshold of proof. Libby's false statements did not help. When Fitzgerald indicted Libby, he compared himself to a baseball umpire who, while attempting to determine whether a pitcher intentionally hit a batter, had sand thrown in his eyes.
I sympathize with the public's confusion about this. I blame the drumbeat from Libby's supporters, who don't let facts get in the way of a lively argument. I thank the researchers at Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog site, for their valuable assistance in helping me collect some recent examples. They include:
William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard on NBC's Today Show: "...I would remind Joe Wilson that Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame's name. Richard Armitage told Robert Novak, we now know...."
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a Republican presidential debate: "I think the sentence was way out of line, ... grossly excessive in a situation in which, at the beginning, the prosecutor knew who the leak was, and he knew a crime wasn't committed."
Republican former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee in an ABC Radio commentary: "The leaking of Valerie Plame's name didn't constitute a crime because she was not a 'covered person' under the relative criminal statue."
No wonder much of the public is confused. Neither side is entitled to its own "facts." But each side tries.
