Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Scooter Libby, Whipping Boy

All those who think Scooter Libby is going to jail for the sins of his superiors, raise your hands.

Don't get me wrong: Perjure yourself, obstruct justice, and you belong in jail. It was a stupid move.

But the guy is just one more of the many sacrificial lambs and red herrings that this administration has offered up on a silver platter once the heat gets a little too close to home.

As I wrote in a letter that was, by a stroke of luck, published in the Times back when Scooter's investigation started in the autumn of '05, this whole project has been a goose chase. C'mon, turn on your wayback machine: Trace it back through Scooter to Cheney okay-ing the outing of Valerie Plame. Don't forget the whole Judith Miller flap at the Times. But don't stop there, loyal Americans...

Please, please, leave us not forget that the whole thing started because Butch & Co. were ticked off at Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, for writing an op-ed in the Times telling what the entire world now knows is the truth: Saddam Hussein never bought a scintilla of uranium from Niger, and was not storing it for nefarious purposes. One of the various chimeras the administration was selling us in the fear-mongering days after September 11, to support the wind-up for war. Even stubborn George Bush later admitted it was false.

I exhort us all to keep our eyes on the prize. Maybe it's too late to impeach Bush (as I believe we should ASAP, for the sake of posterity alone, never mind justice). But let's remember that this slimy shell game is only the smallest example of the larger games Bush's administration has played with us all along.

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