With apologies to Arlo Guthrie
By now, we've all heard about Scooter Libby's indictment. Of course everybody has an opinion on the whole sordid affair. My favorite take on this is the balanced summary from Abracadabrah. Also, you can check out The Corner for lots of excellent up to date opinions, speculation and rumor mongering.
Me, I'm a little more light hearted. For all the breathless commentary we are getting on this story from the media (despite the fact that they have all but ignored other high level indictments in the past) what seems to be forgotten is the ridiculous fact that Libby has been indicted for gossiping with reporters. "Did you hear about his wife? No, well let me tell you, I heard that she was the one..." Actually scratch that. They couldn't indict him for gossiping. They indicted him for lying about gossiping.
It all reminds me of another story from long ago...
Blatantly stolen from the original:
The scene: Scooter Libby, having resigned from the White House in shame over the Valerie Plame affair decides to redeem himself by enlisting in the Army. He goes down to Whitehall Street in New York city to sign up and get his physical. Everything goes fine until he gets to the very last station. Here's how Scooter tells it.
"I walked up, and I said, "What do you want?" He said, "Scooter, we only got one question: Have you ever been arrested?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Valerie Plame Massacree with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, "Scooter, have you ever been to court?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of the grand jury testimony with Judith Miller refusin' to testify against me and goin' to jail for contempt and all that . . .
He stopped me right there and said, "Scooter, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says 'Group W'."
And I walked over to the bench there, and there's... Group W is where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin' your special crime.
There was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people on the bench there . . . there was mother-rapers . . . father-stabbers . . . father-rapers! FATHER-RAPERS sittin' right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin' guys were sittin' there on the bench, and the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one . . . the meanest father-raper of them all . . . was comin' over to me, and he was mean and ugly and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things, and he sat down next to me. He said, "Scooter, what'd you get?"
I said, "I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars and quit my job."
He said, "What were you arrested for, Scooter?" and I said, "Gossipin'' . . . . And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "And lyin' to a grand jury . . . " And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', . . . all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine."
You can get anything you want
At Valerie's restaurant.
Me, I'm a little more light hearted. For all the breathless commentary we are getting on this story from the media (despite the fact that they have all but ignored other high level indictments in the past) what seems to be forgotten is the ridiculous fact that Libby has been indicted for gossiping with reporters. "Did you hear about his wife? No, well let me tell you, I heard that she was the one..." Actually scratch that. They couldn't indict him for gossiping. They indicted him for lying about gossiping.
It all reminds me of another story from long ago...
Blatantly stolen from the original:
The scene: Scooter Libby, having resigned from the White House in shame over the Valerie Plame affair decides to redeem himself by enlisting in the Army. He goes down to Whitehall Street in New York city to sign up and get his physical. Everything goes fine until he gets to the very last station. Here's how Scooter tells it.
"I walked up, and I said, "What do you want?" He said, "Scooter, we only got one question: Have you ever been arrested?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Valerie Plame Massacree with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, "Scooter, have you ever been to court?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of the grand jury testimony with Judith Miller refusin' to testify against me and goin' to jail for contempt and all that . . .
He stopped me right there and said, "Scooter, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says 'Group W'."
And I walked over to the bench there, and there's... Group W is where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin' your special crime.
There was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people on the bench there . . . there was mother-rapers . . . father-stabbers . . . father-rapers! FATHER-RAPERS sittin' right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin' guys were sittin' there on the bench, and the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one . . . the meanest father-raper of them all . . . was comin' over to me, and he was mean and ugly and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things, and he sat down next to me. He said, "Scooter, what'd you get?"
I said, "I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars and quit my job."
He said, "What were you arrested for, Scooter?" and I said, "Gossipin'' . . . . And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "And lyin' to a grand jury . . . " And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', . . . all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine."
You can get anything you want
At Valerie's restaurant.
posted by Doug at 1:56 PM
3 Comments:
Actually he was indicted for, "knowingly and willfully mak[ing] a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency within the executive branch of the United States, in that the defendant, in response to questions posed to him by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,"
In other words lying to a Federal Grand jury.
I know what your saying in general. It's like Clinton was indicted for a blow job. But it's not true. It was for lying to a Grand Jury as well.
I don't disagree with you. (And I actually don't think that your statement contradicts mine)
I said "Actually scratch that. They couldn't indict him for gossiping. They indicted him for lying about gossiping."
He was indicted for lying and (assuming that he is found guilty) he should have been. You can't lie to a grand jury and expect to get off scott free. I still think it's funny.
I agree with you. What has not been said by the press, of course, is that, as much as they are praying that this whole thing would blow up into a 21st century Watergate scandal, there is a huge difference between Watergate and Leakgate:
Watergate was something that a Republican administration did and tried to cover up. The media ultimately uncovered the cover up and we saw a whole unraveling of sorts of one lie on top of another.
Leakgate, on the other hand, has the fingerprints of the MSM all over it. The news of Plame's role in Wilson's trip to Niger was uncovered by members of the media who then approached their White House sources for a response. Those same White House sources then spoke to other members of the media, who spoke to the original members of the media who uncovered the whole Plame nepotism issue in the first place, who then went back to their White House sources again, and then, who ultimately began to publish articles highlighting the fact that it was very likely that Wilson's claims regarding his trip to Niger weren't all that he was making them out to be, who then shouted back to the press that his wife had been "outed," of which the press then turned around and demanded an investigation, which congress and the White House then endorsed, which meant that many members of the media then were required to reveal their confidential sources and THEIR role in the whole stupid affair...
Clear as mud, don't you think? The long and the short of it, however, is that this so-called "scandal" is about the media, not the Bush Administration. But the MSM is not about to take itself on. They already have enough problems with declining readership, an increasingly influential blogosphere, and their rapidly declining credibility with Americans in general.
Sorry, went on a bit long here.
Thanks,
David
Viewpointjournal.com
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