Libby; a poison pill for the press.

Am I missing something?

A lot of commentators today, after the Libby indictment, are saying that Fitzgerald has shown that there was no attempt to deliberately “out” Valerie Plame, since he has brought no indictment on that charge at all. This is, apparently, some sort of exoneration of Rove, Bush, and co. Even on the Tim Russett show, there was a clip from Fitzgerald saying that he “is making no allegation” about outing Valerie Plame, having already explained that, if he is not bringing an indictment, he makes no comment. This was interpreted by all at the table as Fitzgerald declaring that no such deliberate ‘outing’ had occurred.

Huh?

Determining whether or not a deliberate ‘outing’ occurred was indeed the original purpose of the investigation, - the judicial process, the carrying out of justice. At the end of this stage of the investigation, Libby has been indicted on 5 counts, two of them specifically “obstruction of justice”, all of them concerned with obstructing justice, and clearly committed with the intention of hiding the truth. So, if any of these charges hold, then justice actually was obstructed. Libby is not just accused of naughtiness, but of truly, significantly, impeding the investigation. He is being indicted because his actions had consequences - the obscuring of truth.

Fitzgerald did not bring indictments about an outing, but explained most eloquently that his investigations had been obstructed. So two possible situations exist:

There was no deliberate outing, but Fitzgerald could not determine that.
There was a deliberate outing, but Fitzgerald could not determine that.

Is not the whole point of regarding obstruction of justice as serious, the reason for prosecuting it, the fact that, because of Libby, Fitzgerald was unable to find out if a deliberate outing crime was committed? That is the nasty thing about cover-ups. They cover things up. So to say this exonerates those not accused is to take the side of the up-coverers. All we can truly say is “we don’t know. The truth was covered up!”

All that Fitzgerald implied about whether or not a deliberate outing occurred is that he doesn’t know - - yet.
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It was a cool move by Libby though, in a brilliantly Machiavellian way. You have to hand it to him. The press are now all confused and troubled that the indictment of Libby is bad for them, since it compromises the freedom of the press, through attacking the promises of confidentiality they make to sources. Some of them even seem puzzled that Libby would use the press, since he hates them so much.

But it was brilliant, under the circumstances. Libby interwove his alibi with the press’s “confidentiality of sources” doctrine. He inserted it like a virus. “The press told me!" So he knew the press would be extremely unwilling to blow his cover. And they were. Judy Miller even went to jail to protect Libby’s right to tell lies injurious to the security of the country without being exposed. As Fitzgerald said, it was the conversation with the press that was the crime itself.

The press do need to be able to protect the identity of honest whistle-blowers, but does that inescapably commit them to protecting the identity of malicious liars? If the press, as they are having to do, turn on Libby and reveal their conversations, a huge hole is blown in their future promises of confidentiality.

Therein lies Libby’s brilliance. It was very likely that the press, for their own reasons, would fight hard to preserve Libby’s alibi. They did. But if that didn’t work, at least he could take the press down with him.

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