A better post-Libby reflection

David Corn, a friend and colleague of Joe Wilson, on the Libby verdict and right-wing reactions: "the Libby Lobby". (h/t for this and previous Libby-related link to Glenn Greenwald commenters-- I really should be working.)

When a left-wing commenter can praise John Ashcroft, umm, well, wow. Who would have thought that his successor would make Ashcroft look good?

So there was a leak. It occurred as the White House assailed Wilson. It was perfectly reasonable to call, as several congressional Democrats did, for an inquiry. The CIA, after an initial review, forwarded a request to the Justice Department. The Justice Department then decided in late September 2003 to open an investigation, and FBI agents began knocking on doors. About two months later, Attorney General John Ashcroft--no leftie--recused himself from the case, which involved White House officials. And Ashcroft's deputy appointed Patrick Fitzgerald, the tough-minded and independent U.S. attorney in Chicago, to be a special prosecutor in the case.

What's wrong with this picture? Nothing. There was a possible crime. The CIA said so itself. The feds started investigating, and Ashcroft's Justice Department made certain the investigation would be professional, not political.

This is a calm and matter-of-fact piece-- and all the more powerful for it. He concludes, having detailed reactions at the National Review online site:

In similar circumstances, law-and-order conservatives would cry no tears for the convicted felon. But in this instance, right-wing allies of the White House have decried the prosecution and verdict as extreme miscarriages of justice, claiming Libby was the innocent victim of a political witch hunt. Some may be doing so merely to help a friend. But I suspect that conservatives view Libby, a chief architect of the Iraq war, as a stand-in for the administration they favor and a vice president they fancy.

Though both Fitzgerald and Ted Wells, Libby's lead lawyer, declared during the trial that this case was not about the war and not about whether the White House had misled the country into the mess in Iraq, Libby's defenders don't seem to buy that. And perhaps no one should. Libby lied to cover up his (and perhaps Cheney's) role in a White House effort to beat back the charge Bush had lied the nation to war. Libby, in a way, had tried to protect all those who had cheered on the war and who now stand discredited. Credit the members of the Libby Lobby with gratitude, though it comes at a high price: exposing themselves as partisans for whom the war and politics mean more than the truth and law.