Vice President's Chief of Staff indicted — no one notices

Washington was buzzing last week with the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and if you’re like most Americans, your opinion on the matter is something along the lines of “who the hell is ‘Scooter’ Libby?” You are quite justified in this opinion, as most Americans have no idea who the hell Scooter Libby is.

For what it’s worth, he’s the Vice President’s Chief of Staff. He’s to Dick Cheney what Andrew Card is to President Bush. Who’s Andrew Card? Exactly.

What matters to most people is that he works at the White House, and that he’s been indicted. This has left liberals screaming for more indictments, resignations, firings, and in the case of Al Franken, executions.

But before we go gathering up our pitchforks and lighting up our torches, exactly what has happened?

Well, let’s start from the beginning. In the lead up to the Iraq war, President Bush made a statement during his State of the Union address that British intelligence had learned that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy substantial quantities of uranium from the African country of Niger. This, in and of itself, was true. British intelligence had, in fact, learned that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from Niger.

Enter Ambassador Joe Wilson, staunch critic of the Bush administration and opponent to war. He hears this claim about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger and thinks ‘I bet that’s bullshit…’ and decides he wants to check it out for himself.

Enter Valerie Plame, CIA operative and wife of Ambassador Wilson. Plame offered up her husband’s name for the trip, citing that he has good relations with the Nigerian Prime Minister and the Minister of Mining, both of which could shed some light on the whole thing regarding Iraq.

So, Wilson goes over to Niger, does some half-assed looking around, and comes back to America making all these public claims that he was sent to Niger on behalf of the Vice President and that he found no evidence of Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium.

Well, the Vice President gets wind of this and his reaction is essentially ‘What? I didn’t send that tool to Niger. His wife probably got him the job. She works at the CIA.’ Similar reactions permeate the administration, and eventually work their way into the press, until it becomes a matter of record that Joe Wilson’s wife works for the CIA, and recommended him for the trip to Niger.

This, of course, really pisses off Joe Wilson. He starts throwing a tantrum about how his wife was ‘outed’ to punish him for his criticism of the Bush administration. This is what the psychology community refers to as ‘delusions of grandeur,’ and what most of America refers to as ‘bullshit.’

Despite their apparent rage about the whole thing, Joe Wilson and his wife still managed to find it in themselves to do a photo shoot for Vanity Fair and pull down a lucrative book deal. But I guess we all have different ways of dealing with emotions.

First of all, Joe Wilson’s wife was not ‘outed.’ The fact that she worked at the CIA was not a secret to those that knew her. Wilson’s wife’s name was not mentioned to punish him, it was mentioned to marginalize him. The fact of the matter is that he would not have made the trip to Niger if it weren’t for his wife, and that is wholly relevant to the situation.

Second, what Joe Wilson found in Niger did not debunk what the President, British intelligence, or anyone else had said about Iraq’s attempt to buy uranium from Niger. In fact, the Ambassador’s findings bolstered these claims.

Even so, the rabble-rousing on the left was loud enough to warrant an investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. But two years and many many tax dollars later, the best he could come up with was that Scooter Libby gave differing testimony about phone conversations, and apparently did so on multiple occasions, thus warranting the multiple indictments.

Now, all of this is very intriguing to me. Apparently, Scooter Libby has been indicted for lying about a crime…that never happened? How does that work? Patrick Fitzgerald set out to learn whether or not a crime was committed in the release of Valerie Plame’s name. After two years, he has been unable to come up with sufficient evidence to even charge someone with the crime. But he is going to nail someone’s ass to the wall for having conflicting memories about phone conversations that happened two years ago?

Everyone talked about how stupid it was that Martha Stewart was indicted for lying about insider trading. I’ll second that. But at least with Martha Stewart, she was lying about a crime that had actually been committed. This thing with Scooter Libby is even more asinine. I’d venture a guess that if you made someone testify as many times as Scooter Libby did, odds are there would eventually be grounds for perjury on something.

There’s been a strange reversal of roles in American politics. Democrats are now calling for Libby’s head over perjury, and are still in a state of bloodlust for Karl Rove. These are the same people claiming that Bill Clinton’s perjury charge was no big deal. Likewise, the people that were out to crucify Bill Clinton are taking a more measured approach to Libby’s case.

Both sides are full of crap. But let’s keep in mind that an indictment is not a conviction. Bill Clinton was not merely indicted of perjury. He was also convicted, impeached, and disbarred. That’s a pretty big deal.

Whether or not Libby’s case will have a similar outcome remains to be seen, as his trail isn’t likely to even begin for several months. By then, people will be back to “Who the hell is Scooter Libby?”

As it stands now, the idea that the Bush administration outed a CIA agent in retaliation for criticism seems to only exist in the mind of wishful-thinking liberals. To quote the eternally wise Donald Rumsfeld — ‘it’s just not consistent with the facts.’ What it more realistically amounts to is a game of politics on both sides. Joe Wilson tried to use his wife to criticize the administration and he got called on it. Is that really worth a two year investigation and the use of American tax dollars? Aren't we supposed to be solving poverty in New Orleans?