Well off I went on a post-holidays camping trip for a couple of weeks, and the blog migration to another server didn’t go so well. It’s been dead for a couple of weeks. Now it’s picked a theme all on its own that isn’t quite up to snuff. “Winging” migration isn’t the best plan – as you can see. Work in progress…
But even with all of that, I wanted to comment on the Libby Trial. If you’re watching the news or reading newspapers to follow this trial – you’re in the dark. The places to go are David Corn, FiredogLake, and the Next Hurrah [the latter two are also blogging on the Huffington Post. David Corn got the whole thing going way back when, when he pointed out that “outing” a C.I.A. Agent was against the law. Christy Hardin Smith [formerly known as reddhedd] and Marcy Wheeler [emptywheel] just happen to know more that God about this case, so there’s a running commentary of the lies, distortions, and spin as they happens. Great stuff!
Marcy Wheeler speculated this weekend about a big question in my mind, “Why call Cheney?” Seems like a desparate and dangerous move:
So then why call Cheney?
I think it may well be an attempt to have Cheney do Libby’s “Very Important Defense Masquerading as a Memory Defense” for him. Libby attended Dick’s briefings during this period, so he knows what Libby was briefed.Are they putting Dick on the stand to “stand in” for Libby. Cheney plays Cheney’s Cheney to Cheney’s Cheney?
There is one other reason we’ve seen that Dick may take the stand–the words that Cheney wrote on Libby’s sonnet explaining why Scottie had to exonerate Libby:
Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.
Note, both teams mentioned this in the opening statement. Fitzgerald clearly believes it is damning in some way, since he brought it up. If it is damning, then Libby’s team needs to find a way to spin it. Perhaps, in fact, the notion that this note refers to Rove–and just Rove–is total spin. What if it refers to Ari, not Rove? Ari, after all, was the one who admitted on July 7 that the uranium statement shouldn’t have been in the SOTU. And someone really botched the statement to Pincus in suggesting they had gotten Wilson’s report. So it may well be several people–people working on the orders of Libby–who were “incompetent.” But Team Libby wants to claim it referred solely to Rove. If they feel the need to make this claim, they’re going to need Dick to make it.
My thoughts are less informed, more basic. I think Cheney’s mad as a hatter right now – spitting venom. He was so out of hand on Wolf Blitzer the other day, it was embarassing even to those of us who think he’s a Sith. I think his testimony is Aristotelian, as in Aristotle’s Poetics. An essential element of a good Tregedy, says Aristotle, is the persistence of a Character Flaw that leads to a great Fall. I think that Cheney is just arrogant enough to think he can walk into the courtroom and whip them into shape. Well I say “Walk right in. Sit yourself down. And Daddy let your mind roll on.” I’m looking for a “McCarthy Moment” [remember Joseph Welch!].
Today, more Cathie Martin…
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