Politics

Free Scooter Libby!

The call from the Wall Street Journal is for the president to pardon Scooter Libby and to bring an end to the pseudo-scandal known as “Plamegate.” I have been writing about this scandal for over a year (see previous posts) and have become increasingly aware that this entire dust-up was more about partisan politics than it was about truth–at least insofar as it has been covered in the media.Here is what we know today. Richard Armitage leaked Valerie Plame’s identity to Robert Novak. Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush did not.

I know this will be a shocker to Joe Wilson who was hoping to see Karl Rove “frog-marched” off the White House premises and whose star has risen with every false accusation he makes against Rove and the Bush administration. But perhaps this will teach partisan hacks from both sides of the aisle not to jump on the band wagon of spurious allegations in the future. What remains to be seen is whether Joe Wilson’s star will continue to rise now that everyone knows that he and his wife are not the martyrs they were once thought to be.

In any case, this truly has been a Seinfeldian scandal–that is, the scandal about nothing.

See “Fess Up, Mr. Armitage: Time to put the Plame conspiracy to its final rest” – Wall Street Journal

“First Source of C.I.A. Leak Admits Role, Lawyer Says” – New York Times

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