Bill Moyers is a journalist who calls 'em like he sees 'em, and there's nothing wrong with his eyesight. In an essay posted this evening at Bob Parry's Consortium News, Moyers looks at the neocons who are clamoring for the president to pardon the convicted perjurer, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby:Begging for Libby's Pardon
We have yet another remarkable revelation of the mindset of Washington's ruling clique of neoconservative elites -- the people who took us to war from the safety of their Beltway bunkers.There's more, and it's good. I'd read it if I were you.
Even as Iraq grows bloodier by the day, their passion of the week is to keep one of their own from going to jail.
It is well known that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- once Vice President Cheney's most trusted adviser -- has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury. Lying. Not a white lie, mind you. A killer lie. Scooter Libby deliberately poured poison into the drinking water of democracy by lying to federal investigators, for the purpose of obstructing justice.
Attempting to trash critics of the war, Libby and his pals in high places -- including his boss Dick Cheney -- outed a covert CIA agent. Libby then lied to cover their tracks. To throw investigators off the trail, he kicked sand in the eyes of truth.
"Libby lied about nearly everything that mattered," wrote the chief prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. The jury agreed and found him guilty on four felony counts. Judge Reggie B. Walton -- a no-nonsense, lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key type, appointed to the bench by none other than George W. Bush -- called the evidence "overwhelming" and threw the book at Libby.
You would have thought their man had been ordered to Guantanamo, so intense was the reaction from his cheerleaders. They flooded the judge's chambers with letters of support for their comrade and took to the airwaves in a campaign to "free Scooter."
Vice President Cheney issued a statement praising Libby as "a man...of personal integrity" -- without even a hint of irony about their collusion to browbeat the CIA into mangling intelligence about Iraq in order to justify the invasion.
"A patriot, a dedicated public servant, a strong family man, and a tireless, honorable, selfless human being," said Donald Rumsfeld -- the very same Rumsfeld who had claimed to know the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction and who boasted of "bulletproof" evidence linking Saddam to 9/11.
I'd also pay attention to the brilliant remark from Judge Walton which was preserved in this post from Liquified Viscera. (No hints on this one; you have to read it for yourself!)