I Hate, Hate, Hate this Editorial
Okay, we've been informed that "allies of the White House have quietly been circulating talking points in recent days among Republicans sympathetic to the administration, seeking to help them make the case that bringing charges like perjury mean the prosecutor does not have a strong case" and that "indicting [Rove and Libby] would amount to criminalizing politics and that Mr. Fitzgerald did not understand how Washington works."
And making full use of those talking points is the Wall Street Journal, whose unsigned (although we suspect it was penned by Taranto) editorial can be summed up as, "Would it be criminal to leak the name of a CIA officer during in war time? Hell, it would be criminal not to!"
While this editorial makes full use of Karl Rove's "Rovegate Talking Points for Dummies," it's noteworthy for its liberal (in the lowercase sense) use of lies, dubious claims, and unfair implications. So, just for fun I thought we'd go through it, chunk by chunk, and identify some of these "rhetorical devices." (I numbered the chunks for convenience sake only.)
1. Rampant leaks notwithstanding, no one but Patrick Fitzgerald knows all of the criminal evidence the special prosecutor is considering against senior White House officials. Our hope is that he also understands that the job of a prosecutor is not to settle what at bottom is a political and policy fight over the war in Iraq.
Lie by implication: There's not even the possibility that a crime was committed -- it's clear that all that occurred was some spirited political debating (on the part of both sides).
2. Let's stipulate that the law is the law, and if Bush Administration officials lied to a grand jury in the clear and obvious way that Bill Clinton did, they should be prosecuted.
Dubious implied claim: Sure, lying under oath is bad, but only if it's done obviously. If you can lie well enough so it's not obvious, it's no crime.
Oh, and it's only illegal to lie about important stuff, like blow jobs.
3. If Mr. Fitzgerald has evidence of a malicious attempt to expose a CIA undercover agent, as defined by the relevant statute, the same applies. But the fact that the prosecutor has waited as long as he has--until the last days of his grand jury--suggests that he considers this a less than obvious case. A close call deserves to be a no call.
Lie: It's only a crime if it's done out of malice. Betraying CIA NOCs out of love for one's President is perfectly legal.
Dubious claim: Since Fitzgerald waited to get all the facts in before making his report, he must have a weak case -- and fairness says that only really obvious cases of criminal wrongdoing should be placed before the judicial system.
4. All the more so because this entire probe began and has continued as a kind of proxy for the larger political war about the Iraq War. In July 2003, Joseph Wilson used his insider status as a former CIA consultant to accuse the Bush Administration of lying about Iraq WMD as an excuse to go to war.
Lie: That Wilson accused Bush of lying about Iraqi WMDs as an excuse to go to war.
What Wilson actually said was, "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." And as subsequent events have proven, Wilson's conclusions were right on the money.
5. A political furor erupted, and Mr. Wilson became an antiwar celebrity who joined the Kerry for President campaign.
Dubious implication: That since Wilson later joined the Kerry campaign, Scootergate is a purely political matter that certainly shouldn't result in any criminal prosecutions.
6. Amid an election campaign and a war, Bush Administration officials understandably fought back.
Dubious implied claim: That during elections and in time of war, it's okay to leak the identity of CIA officers if you don't like what their husbands are saying about you.
7. One way they did so was to tell reporters that Mr. Wilson's wife, CIA analyst Valerie Plame, had been instrumental in getting him the CIA consulting job. This was true--though Mr. Wilson denied it at the time--as a bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee documented in 2004.
Lie: That the bipartisan Senate report says that Plame got Wilson the CIA consulting job.
As Media Matters explains, "In fact, the committee did not officially conclude that she had been responsible for Wilson's assignment."
Lie 2: Plame was merely an analyst.
She wasn't.
Dubious implied claim: That if somebody says something true about your twisting of intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi nuclear threat, that you have no choice but to reveal the CIA affiliation of his NOC wife.
8. As it does many times each year following a press report with classified information, the CIA routinely referred this "leak" about Ms. Plame's status to the Justice Department for investigation.
Dubious implied claim: That Karl Roves "leaks" classified information about CIA employees all the time, so it's no big deal.
9. Only after someone (probably at the CIA) leaked news of this referral to the media in September 2003 was there another political uproar and calls for a "special prosecutor."
Dubious claim: That the CIA probably leaked news of the crimes report. While this info could have came from the CIA, the timing would suggest that it actually was leaked by DOJ.
Unfair implication: This is only became a big deal because the CIA, which hates Bush, leaked news of the referral. So, both sides leaked, and everything should be even now.
10. Three months later, the panicky Bush Administration relented, and Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed.
Dubious implied claim: The young, inexperienced, delicate Bush Administration was pressured into having the matter investigated, and the big bully Democrats somehow forced them to appoint a special prosecutor, which was a BIG mistake, because it was all political to being with.
Another dubious implication: It was just nerves that caused the administration to ask for the matter to be investigated, not any concern about CIA employees. And George was just grandstanding for the camera when he said, "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. ... I want to know the truth. Leaks of classified information are bad things." (Okay, he probably was just grandstanding, but I think it's kind of funny that the WSJ would be implying as much.)
11. Mr. Wilson's original claims about what he found on a CIA trip to Africa, what he told the CIA about it, and even why he was sent on the mission have since been discredited.
Big Lie: That Wilson's claims have been discredited.
12. What a bizarre irony it would be if what began as a politically motivated lie by Mr. Wilson nonetheless leads to indictments of Bush Administration officials for telling reporters the truth.
Big Lies: Wilson lied, but Rove and Libby told God's own truth.
Really dubious claim: It will be bizarre irony if Karl and Scooter are the ones who might be prosecuted for perjury for doing nothing more than lying to federal officials during the course of an official investigation.
Um, kids, that's not exactly how one defines "irony."
13. Mr. Fitzgerald's original charge was to investigate if anyone had violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. But as we and others have repeatedly written, to violate that law someone must have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity.
Lie 1: That Fitzgerald's original charge was to investigate only violations of the 1982 act.
Like Media Matters says, "The DOJ's delegation of Fitzgerald as special prosecutor gave him broad authority to investigate the leaks; it made no mention of the IIPA, nor did it name any other specific statute."
Lie 2: You can only be convicted of violating the IIPA if you act out of malice.
Actually, the statute says nothing about motivation. Thus, exposing a CIA Covert Agent so you could make the claim that the CIA was using nepotism to give out unpaid assignments to third-world nations is just as illegal as doing it to help al Qaeda.
14. Ms. Plame was surely not undercover, and her own husband had essentially made her "outing" inevitable when he exploited his former CIA consultant status (that she had helped him obtain) to inject himself in the middle of a Presidential campaign.
Lie: Ms. Plame wasn't undercover.
As everyone with an IQ over room temperature knows, she surely WAS undercover, which the WSJ conceded when they said "following a press report with classified information." If Plame hadn't been undercover, then mention of her CIA employment wouldn't have been classified.
Lie 2: If a former ambassador publicly mentions his unclassified consultant gig with the CIA, then he is responsible for the outing of his wife because, um, everybody who has ever consulted for the Agency has an undercover spouse working there under her maiden name.
And anyway, he FORCED the Administration to blow her cover by making them look bad.
Lie 3:
And Plame basically outed herself by having a husband who worked as an unpaid CIA consultant.Dubious claim: Wilson wrote his piece for the Times in order to "inject himself in the middle of a presidential campaign." Maybe he did, but I think it's just as likely that he did it because he thought that the administration's twisting of intelligence in order to exaggerate Iraq's nuclear threat when making the case for war was something that the American people deserved to know about.
15. Mr. Fitzgerald may have recognized this problem early, because in February 2004 he asked for permission for much broader investigative authority. It was granted by the man who appointed him, his friend and then Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Lie: Fitzgerald asked for broader authority; this was granted in Feb. 2004.
See Media Matters for a refutation of this claim.
Lie 2: That Fitzgerald was only granted authority to expand his investigation beyond the scope of the IIPA because Comey was his buddy.
16. (Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself, in what looked to us then, and still does today, as an act of political abdication.)
Dubious claim: That Ashcroft did something cowardly by backing away from a criminal investigation which he apparently knew would lead to his cronies Rove and Lewis.
17. Mr. Fitzgerald's office only recently created a Web site and has posted Mr. Comey's letters--an act of odd timing, at the least.
Unfair claim: That there's something fishy about the timing of the creation of Fitzgerald's web site (geez, maybe he knew that there would be a lot of media attention as he wraps things up, and wanted a convenient place where people who write editorials could peruse the relevant documents). It's also unfair to imply that there's something unsavory about the site containing documents relating to Fitzgerald's investigative authority.
18. Media reports say Mr. Fitzgerald is also exploring violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, for leaking classified information. This law has rarely been enforced, and if leaking classified information was routinely prosecuted half of Washington would be in jail.
Big Lie: "Half of Washington" leaks classified information to the press. While it may be true that half of all senior Bush officials do this, they actually compose only a small percentage of the people in Washington (and they're only a drop in the bucket when compared to all of the humble government employees who hold clearances but never, ever leak stuff to Novak, Judy, and the rest).
Lie 2: That the 1917 Espionage Act is rarely enforced.
Actually, it's enforced all the time -- just not to punish leakers.
I remember a case where this law was used to send a woman to jail for over 2 years because she gave a Secret document to the man with whom she was smitten, and he sold it to a foreign power. She didn't act out of malice, she did it because she wanted to impress him -- but she still did jail time.
Now, what if her paramour had been a reporter -- would that have made it okay? Would it have made the damage to national security any less. (After all, foreign powers can -- and do -- read the papers).
Why should it be okay for a senior White House official to misuse classified information for his own personal (and partisan) reasons, and it not be okay for a rather stupid secretary to misuse classified information for her own personal reasons? That sure doesn't sound like America to me.
Dubious claim: It's not fair if Karl and Scooter get busted for what everybody else is doing. A congressman mentioning a classified budget figure in order to push for more (or less spending); a Presidential aide betraying a NOC -- it's all the same thing.
Okay, this is getting tedious (undoubtedly more so for you than for me), so let's just cut to the conclusion:
19. Defending a policy by attacking the credibility of a political opponent--Mr. Wilson--should not be a felony.
Dubious claim: The ends justify the means.
Say, if that's true, then we can take it a step further and say that defending a policy by having a political opponent whacked shouldn't be a felony -- that is, if you're a Republican.
20. As for Mr. Bush, we hope he realizes that anyone who is indicted was defending his policy and his Presidency. He should consider carefully the nature of the charges and the evidence before he dismisses his most loyal advisers.
Dubious claim: That Scooter was defending Bush's Presidency. (My guess is that he was actually defending Cheney's ego, which was apparently wounded by Wilson's piece, since Cheney really loved that story about the Yellowvcake.) Of course, Karl may have been defending Bush's Presidency -- or he could have just been engaging in some nasty political tricks for their own sake. He's like that.
Dubious claim 2: That a President should overlook a few crimes if they were committed on his behalf, because loyalty is more important than national security, the US's efforts to gather information on WMDs, the rule of law, or an innocent CIA employee.
Next Time: The Wall Street Journal editorializes about why child sexual abuse is wrong, except when done by the Bush administration.
1:22:57 AM
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