What's a Little Lying Between Friends?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; 11:18 AM

"Some perjury technicality"?

Did Kay Bailey Hutchison really say that?

She must have. It was on "Meet the Press."

Is this the Republican strategy for dealing with any CIA leak indictments?
Saying no real crimes were committed, just a teensy weensy bit of perjury?
Turning Patrick Fitzgerald into Ken Starr?

I hasten to add that I have no idea whether anyone will be indicted. I've
never met Pat Fitzgerald, and I had problems with the way he threatened
reporters with jail, but as the U.S. attorney in Chicago who went after
some
Daley cronies, he has a sterling reputation.

It is true that prosecutors who can't prove the original crime often
wind up
bringing perjury and obstruction charges. But lying to investigators, or to
a federal grand jury, strikes at the heart of the law-enforcement process.
This happens to be the message that GOPers pounded over and over again when
Clinton dissembled over Monica, so surely they take it seriously. Or is
that
only when a Democrat is president?

Hutchison likened the senior administration officials who might or might
not
be indicted to Martha Stewart, who was only charged with a cover-up (lying
about insider trading is okay as long as you're not convicted of insider
trading? Well, Martha did get two TV shows, even though one is tanking).
The
Texas senator also complained about "sort of a gotcha mentality in this
country," which again, try as I might, I can't remember being a significant
Republican complaint during the prosecutions of the Clinton years.

It instantly occurred to me that I might check what Sen. Hutchison had to
say during the Lewinsky scandal. But in the blog world, somebody's already
thought of your best idea five minutes ago. So before I could type in the
Nexis search, I saw that Michael Crowley , on the New Republic's new group
grope "The Plank," has this:

"Hmm . . . That's not the tune Hutchison was singing back when Bill Clinton
was caught with his hands in the intern jar. Here's the February 13, 1999
Dallas Morning News:

" 'The principle of the rule of law-- equality under the law and a clear
standard for perjury and obstruction of justice-- was the overriding issue
in this impeachment,' said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who also
voted 'guilty' on both counts."

HuffPost blogger Trey Ellis pounces on Kay Bailey:

"Senator Hutchinson's absurd utterance was another GOP trial balloon intent
on trying to mute public outrage. Fox and the rest of the right-wing echo
chamber has been beating this drum ever since 'lawyers close to the case,'
(probably Rove and Libby's), leaked that indictments were coming not for
the
felony charge of outing an undercover agent but for lying about it to
federal investigators. You have to at least hand it to these guys, when
they're handed lemons, they try their damndest to make lemonade. 'Gee,
there's not enough evidence to actually convict the highest-ranking members
of the White House and the office of the Vice President of treason, just
perjury and conspiracy. Is that so wrong?'

"The party that said they won the last election because of their stand on
moral issues doesn't have a leg to stand on. Nothing shows how out of touch
Republicans now are with the values of the American people."

Michelle Malkin takes exception to Hutchison's remarks:

"Um, has anyone suggested that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is a
'gotcha' kind of guy who would throw away his good reputation by pursuing
'technicalities' instead of 'real' crimes? I haven't heard anyone on our
side suggest anything of the kind."

And yes, this must be an official strategy, as the New York Times reports
that "allies of the White House suggested Sunday that they intended to
pursue a strategy of attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over
legal technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecutor."

Pat Fitzgerald, menace to society?

Wasn't this guy appointed by the Bush Justice Department after Ashcroft
realized he was too conflicted to investigate Plamegate?

So the vice president of the United States did have some involvement:

"I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first
learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation
in a
conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in
2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday," according to the NYT .

"Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr.
Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a
federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer,
Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said."

Nothing like preemptive leaking-- one of the great spectator sports.

Bill Kristol tries to elevate the argument against White House indictments
(and anticipates the Clinton-comparison argument):

"Unless the perjury is clear-cut or the obstruction of justice willful and
determined, we hope that the special prosecutor has the courage to end the
inquiry without bringing indictments. It is fundamentally inappropriate to
allow the criminal law to be used to resolve what is basically a policy and
political dispute within the administration, or between the administration
and its critics. One trusts that the special counsel will have the courage
after conducting his exhaustive investigation to reject inappropriate
criminal indictments if the evidence does not require them, no matter how
much criticism he might then get from the liberal establishment that yearns
to damage the Bush administration through the use of the criminal law.

"And I will go out on a limb to say this, based on the very limited
information one can glean from press accounts: It seems to me quite
possible-- dare I say probable?-- that no indictments would be the just and
appropriate resolution to this inquiry.

"I say this knowing that administration officials may have engaged in
behavior that is not altogether admirable. I say this knowing that legions
of Clinton defenders will complain that conservatives were happy to support
the impeachment of a president for lying under oath seven years ago. My
response to the second charge is that if anyone lied under oath the way
Bill
Clinton did-- knowingly and purposefully in order to thwart a legitimate
legal process, or if anyone engaged in an obstruction of justice, the way
Bill Clinton did, then indictments would be proper. What is more, the
Clinton White House mounted an extraordinary-- and successful-- political
campaign against the office of the independent counsel and the person of
Kenneth Starr. All the evidence suggests that the Bush White House has been
fully cooperative with, even deferential to, the Fitzgerald investigation."

Except if a senior official doesn't tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth to a grand jury-- and is charged with perjury-- that,
by definition, is less than "fully cooperative."

I found this John Dickerson piece in Slate to be one of the most revealing
about Scooter:

"It's surprising . . . to find Libby is at the center of a press scandal.
The daily communications operation is not something he cares much about.
Rove, by contrast, spends a portion of every day running his own press
operation. He sends BlackBerry messages, forwards polling data, and argues
his case to influential journalists. Libby flies at a higher altitude,
talking mostly to marquee columnists and preferring longer and more
in-depth
conversations to the rat-a-tat-tat required by reporters on deadline.

"Libby does enjoy the intellectual cat-and-mouse game of longer form
interviews, those who have worked with him say. He challenges basic
assumptions and presses on a reporter's sloppy definitions. In my
experience
interviewing him, if a line of reasoning was in any way harmful to the
administration or the vice president, it was sometimes impossible to get
past the gorilla dust. His shimmy and shake sometimes got so bad, I
wondered
if he would even admit to working for the vice president. 'It's very
lawyerly kind of amusement,' says a former aide.

"When the Cheneys hosted a party in February 2002 for the paperback
publication of Libby's book, the guest list was not filled with workaday
journalists, but with the elite from New York and Washington: Sally Quinn
and Ben Bradlee, Leon Wieseltier and Maureen Dowd. In those early days
after
9/11, it seemed like the relationship between the press and the media elite
might turn out to be a fairly cozy one. The Bushies hated 'old Washington,'
but as Libby and the vice president spoke from the landing at the bottom of
the stairs, it seemed as if their half of the administration understood the
quiet commerce between the ruling elite and the more permanent Washington
establishment . . .

"Libby is fussy and precise with reporters, which is why friends and
colleagues find it so hard to believe that he would have been involved in
leaking Plame's identity, obstructing justice, or committing perjury.

"Libby was an exacting source for anyone who talked to him. After using a
Libby quote, it was not unusual for reporters to receive a call from the
vice president's press shop. Mr. Libby wanted to know why only a portion of
his comment was used. 'He would prefer that if a reporter was going to
quote
him that it be an unedited transcript,' says one who worked closely with
him. Other reporters were scolded if a Libby quote hidden under the
attribution of 'senior administration official' was placed near sentences
that he thought might identify him, even if no reasonable reader could come
to such a conclusion. In other words, he's as careful as they come in
Washington."

On the Miers front, Ryan Lizza marvels in the New Republic at how quickly
the right has turned:

'That was fast. Last month, George W. Bush was the leader of the
conservative movement. This month, he's a traitor . . .

"To be sure, the conservative abandonment of Bush isn't total. The right is
divided. Some see the split as one of Washington eggheads versus the
red-state masses. Others, noting that the debate over Miers is, at its
core,
about abortion, interpret the current anger as a revolt by social
conservatives. But neither of these explanations quite captures what is
going on. The conservative war over Miers is being fought by elites on both
sides. The pro-Miers elites are just doing a better job of wrapping their
cause in populism."

The WSJ's John Fund is feeling the heat for his Harriet reporting:

"In desperation, I took to going on radio talk shows in Texas and
tongue-in-cheek offered to practice 'checkbook journalism' for the first
time in my career. I said I would write a small check to the favorite
charity of anyone who contacted me and could plausibly say that he has
had a
serious discussion about politics or judicial philosophy with Ms. Miers. So
far it hasn't cost me a dime.

"For my trouble, I have been incorrectly attacked by allies of Ms. Miers,
including some in the White House, for supposedly waving a checkbook
seeking
negative information about her. For the record, I made my offer in a
jocular
fashion, but to make a serious point. With the exception of President Bush,
no one appears to know the nominee's judicial philosophy."

By the way, says Fund, "I believe it is almost inevitable that Ms. Miers
will withdraw or be defeated."

In National Review, Danielle Crittenden offers a woman's perspective I
haven't seen before:

"It doesn't involve cigars or a stained dress. But the nomination of
Harriet
Miers has created a woman problem on the Right every bit as big as that
which faced feminists during Bill Clinton's presidency.

"For years, conservative women's groups such as the Independent Women's
Forum have opposed feminist visions of female equality. We opposed
affirmative action in the workplace, believing women had to be held to the
same standards as men. We rallied against quotas, with the reasoning
that if
there were fewer female firefighters than male, this was because women
didn't wish to take these jobs, and not because of discriminatory hiring
practices by the fire department . . .

"We were disgusted with feminist groups when they stood by Bill Clinton
through all his women troubles--when the National Organization for Women,
for example, jettisoned all its previously stated principles on sexual
harassment in order to retain political power.

"Now conservative women face a similar dilemma with Harriet: President Bush
has asked us to stand by a woman who is unqualified for the Court
because he
knows what's in her 'heart'-- not in her head.

"We are asked to stand by her because, simply, she is a woman-- a
'pioneer,'
a 'glass-ceiling breaker' -- even while other more qualified women were
rejected for the position (and interestingly, rejected by Harriet herself,
who headed the 'search' committee).

"That her pioneering had nothing to do with gathering expertise in
constitutional law -- well, no biggie. We must swallow the idea that quotas
and affirmative action are justifiable policies for the highest Court in
the
land.

"We are asked, further, to stand hypocritically by this decision as
Patricia
Ireland did when she stood by Bill Clinton--going so far as to sign letters
with other 'accomplished' women saying we believe Harriet Miers is
qualified
for the Court. Whatever our principles, we must jettison them in order to
retain political power."

Meanwhile, the Senate will not get a key part of the paper trail, as the
Boston Globe reports:

"President Bush vowed yesterday not to release any White House memos by his
Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers, provoking a standoff with senators
from both parties who have demanded more information about her work in the
White House.

"Senate leaders, who have asked that they be given a complete list of
Miers's memos by tomorrow, vowed to continue their efforts to obtain at
least some of Miers's White House work, arguing that such documents are
especially important because Miers lacks a record as a judge or law
professor.

"The emerging confrontation developed as criticism of the Miers nomination
expanded with the launching of two new conservative websites aimed at
forcing her withdrawal and raising money for ads against her."

The other woman under fire, Judy Miller, gives an interview to New York
Post
columnist Andrea Peyser :

" 'I'm not mad, I'm sad,' Judy told me from her home on Long Island. 'Isn't
it sad that, after going to jail for 85 days for a principle, it's come to
this?' . . .

"Judy will not take on her colleagues as personally as they've maligned
her.
'Believe it or not, I can be pretty mild. I'm not going to sink to that
level,' she said. 'But if someone says I'm a liar, I'm going to say I'm not
a liar.'"

Of course, those "colleagues" include her boss, Bill Keller.

American Journalism Review Editor Rem Rieder says Keller's mea culpa "was
both the right thing and the smart thing to do. Admitting that you've
screwed up is never easy. It's exponentially harder when you're the boss at
a revered (if flawed) American institution, and your mistakes have
compounded that institution's problems.

"The Times has never been what you would call a particularly transparent
newspaper. Its From the Editors note about the misguided Wen Ho Lee
coverage
was tortured, grudging. Its awfully late guilty plea about the paper's WMD
fiasco didn't even mention Miller.

"But this time Keller was forthright, to the point. And there was none of
the accepting-responsibility-but-not-blame that is so popular these
days. No
'mistakes were made.' These, Keller said, were on me. That's the way a true
leader acts."

Among the unhappy ex-Timesmen is David Halberstam :

" 'I think the paper has taken a terrible hit,' said David Halberstam, one
of the Times' most respected alums, and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning
writer. 'I think it is shocking that this young woman who has been a known
identified land mine for a long time seems to have guaranteed loyalty to
the
office of the Vice President of the United States more than to The New York
Times.' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/10/25/BL2005102500520.html

Yeah, so?

You've been saying for years how drunk I am.  How about that?

And then there's that oh-so-subtle homosexual slur you like to throw
in.

Grow up, Mike.

Phil
======
visit the New York City Homebrewers Guild website:
http://www.hbd.org/nychg