With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.
Of course, Cohen knows not what he is talking about on the facts and his moral compass in nonexistent. Cohen has no idea apparently that Libby was a leaker too. Apparently the idea of 2 or more leakers is too difficult a concept for Cohen to grasp. Apparently the idea of obstruction of justice is not comprehensible for Cohen. Of course, the idea that the CIA referred the case to the Justice Department is a fact unknown or conveniently ignored by Richard Cohen, a Beltway boob of the first order. Of course the fact that John Ashcroft had to recuse himself because of his ties to Karl Rove is not something Cohen can get his head around.
When men like James Comey and Patrick Fitzgerald can be falsely smeared by the likes of a doofus like Richard Cohen (and Cohen is a doofus on almost every issue by the way) says everything you need to know about the Beltway.
Consider this from Cohen:
As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months.
Well, I doubt any thought has gone into this idiotic column. I do not know what would have come of the investigation if Scooter Libby had testify truthfully. But consider what Cohen is saying, who cares that there was an "effort to snooker an entire nation into war?" Who cares that the same group was willing to compromise the covert status of a CIA officer? Who cares about the hubris of government officials lying under oath and obstructing Justice?
Cohen quotes Robert Jackson saying "[prosecutors] should limit themselves to cases in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest." To Cohen, the hundred of thousands of persons in federal custody, they are good examples of this, but his cocktail party friends like Scooter Libby, whatever they do is A-Ok. Do not prosecute them!
On that point, let ME quote Robert Jackson:
It is my belief that the most important thing to bear in mind in administering a tax law, however burdensome or unpopular it may be, is to see that the burden is laid equally without discrimination or favoritism and without permitting evasion.
. . . I have no fear of that crude form of influence which is attempted to be exerted through political lawyers. What the public thinks about political [lawyers] is, however, a different matter. If they could realize that the employment of political lawyers prejudices their cases, there would be far less of this sort of thing.
It is more difficult to be undiscriminating, however, as between taxpayers who employ able lawyers and make studied and persistent efforts to minimize their taxes and those who patiently accept assessments and plan to meet them. It requires consistent effort to avoid being over-persuaded by those who are insistent and to avoid forgetting the interests of those who are absent and unprotesting but who are entitled to equal consideration. It requires straight thinking to avoid being influenced either for or against a taxpayer because of his wealth or position or activity, or because of his relationship to our friends or our party.
Here Cohen plays the role of Libby's political lawayer, because he is of the Beltway. I doubt very much that Richard Cohen cares for THAT QUOTE from Robert Jackson. For it exposes that Cohen is arguing for unequal justice. Robert Jackson's Justice Department, like John Ashcroft's and Alberto Gonzales', all prosecuted persons who committed perjury and obstruction of justice. On what basis should Scooter Libby get fsavorable treatment? Why should Scooter Libby be pardoned while the many persons in prison should be forgotten by Richard Cohen?
If Richard Cohen thinks obstruction of justice and perjury should not be punishable by prison time, then he should say so. But to Cohen, obstruction of justice and perjury by Beltway types is not a crime.
Robert Jackson would be appalled.
