It Just Works That Way
Having a memorable nickname is not an asset when the government comes calling.
Do you understand the Valerie Plame story? I don’t either. I mean, I understand what is happening, but I don’t understand what was supposed to have happened. That is to say, I understand the mechanics of a Washington scandal but not the details of this one.
As usual, a political pissing contest crossed a legal line. The aggrieved complained that a huge injustice was done delivering tremendous harm upon them. The perpetrators argued that the facts didn’t support the grievance and the entire event was being blow out of proportion. Inevitably, a large number of lawyers got rich at taxpayer expense.
What the taxpayers got was what they always get. Bupkis. In the end, the statute that was alleged to have been transgressed was written so narrowly that it would be impossible to convict anyone of violating it. Why this wasn’t the first question asked is beyond me. Talk about bill padding, this should have been solved before lunch.
Prosecutors being prosecutors, you just knew someone was going to get hung on a technicality. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had the dumbest name in the bunch so he was the sure pick for who was going down (Quick note on the indictment poll, it is the guy with the name everyone remembers that gets sent to the detention golf course). Whether he did anything wrong is hard to tell because no one can comunicate his crime in conversational english.
It is a sure bet that Scooter’s life, as he knew it is over. He is about to feel the full weight and fury of the Federal Government, an entity that causes wide spread destruction when it is trying to help people. The real question is if he has been given enough insurances of a soft landing after his long shot prosecution. If he has, this will be one expensive dead-end.
The important thing to remember is that the scandal fulfilled its purpose. There was no real substantive finding of wrongdoing on the original charge because that would be taken seriously. Everything that happened was designed to harden positions on both sides. The players were simply a reason to send fundraising letters, get politicians face time on TV, and allow the usual suspects to bloviate endlessly.
The real crime is that we have reams of meaningless laws that provide a jobs program for lawyers at taxpayer expense while doing nothing to server the public good. Political operatives line up as canon fodder to be sacrificed so the two main political parties can become more entrenched, each side given ample arguments supporting their perspective by ambiguous legislation designed by the un-elected staff of career politicians.