But that didn't happen. Despite the fact that the Intelligence Act was broken; despite the fact that George W. Bush promised us that if leaker is found he would be punished; despite the fact that sworn testimony in the Libby trail from the leakers and the reporters confirms the who, when, and where of the leak, . . . Libby was not charged with violating the Intelligence Act. Neither was Armitage or Cheney, the other admitted leakers. This was not an independent special prosecutor, as was appointed for Watergate and Whitewater, this was a Bush administration Justice Department prosecutor. And he simply failed to prosecute any the leakers for violating the Intelligence Act, even though the President assured us that the leaker would be found and punished.
I assume they'll let him stay out of jail while he appeal his case. There is an excellent chance that his appeals will drag out past the Nov '08 election. Then Bush will pardon him before leaving office. Can't believe Bush won't pardon him for taking one for the team...
The admitted leaker was found Red and it wasnt Armitage, Chaney or Libby. Nobody should be surprised by this verdict. It was pretty much assumed he would be found guilty of lying just based on the testimony. You cant just "forget" or "not recall" the statements he was accused of making. However, this is going down as an all time yawner. Libby was not found guilty of outing Plame, he wasnt charged or found guilty of any intelligence violations (there werent any) and all in all this is pretty ho-hum. Who cares at this point anyway? Plame and Wilson have been exposed for orchastrating the entire thing and proven to be charlatons. Libby would have done better to tell the truth and let the chips fall because after the truth came out about Plame/Wilson it would have been over.
Who are you talking about? Those three all testified that they revealed Plame to reporters and so testified the reporters. Of course there were. Not true. enough evidence has been testified to to charge Armitage, Libby, and Cheney.
Good point. Perhaps the democratic congressional investigation that will now appear will be timed to be ugly during the election and finish after inauguration.
Wilson himself is the ultimate leaker. Everyone else is gossip mongering albeit for political reasons. The finger and blame is pointed rightly so at Wilson. Even Mr liberal Lou Dobbs chastised Wilson for outing his wife while calling them both charlatans. Libby is guilty of lying. Everyone else is guilty of gossip mongering and Wilson is the one who started the gossip. Even Novak admits he found information on Wilsons wife in a "Who's Who" directory and guess who submitted it? Yup, Wilson. Guess who told that reporter Corn who was undercover, yup...Wilson. Novak didnt even claim in his original article that Plame was covert, it was Corn who first dangled that info. These are the reasons why Fitzgerald could never bring a charge for an intelligence crime. Wilson and Plame would have had to tesitify and it would of unraveled the entire case. Fitzgerald knew it.
I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the situation. I do hope Bush pardons him. This is the thing I hate the most about politics in this country. Fitzgerald was out to get Cheney or Rove and couldn't come up with anything so to save his reputation he found something to get Libby on. Meanwhile you have William Jefferson and other Democrats that have supposedly done worse things than this. This is also payback for the Clinton Impeachment and lying under oath. It just seems like there are bigger fish to fry on both sides of the aisle. I feel sorry for Libby, you serve your country under an administration and the political witch hunt begins and something happens then your life has changed forever. Politics in this country isn't worth it, only crooks and kooks should enter the arena. I feel like I NEVER want to vote for another politician again, its a waste of my time. One other point. These congressional investigations are a joke. They are suppose to be bypartisian when they aren't. Politicians on these committees don't know what the meaning of the word is is and they only know one thing, politics.
It is funny because its the truth. The problem with most people is they look at this story like the game started at the end of the first half and forget about what happened beforehand. If you do your homework and go back and do the research as to who said what to who LONG before Novak published his article you will see Wilson was bragging about his wife being in the CIA as early as 2002. Just listen to Libby's tapes that are currently on CNN. It will give you a good idea how this whole thing unfolded and then correlate that with the anecdotal evidence and quotes from other reporters that are easily found regarding Wilson's statements (especially from Corn). This is the main reason why last September the Yale Law Review said more serious charges could not be brought against Libby and no charges could be brought against Cheney, Armitage, et al.
