Patriot or Uncle Dick’s Patsy?

Here’s the thing about Libby’s sentence and the flap about a possible Bush pardon — the lying and obstruction at the heart of this is just a nibble of the larger cookie the Pubs are guarding as if it were a communion wafer — it’s the Great Paranoia of their kind. They really do believe, heart and soul, that the future of the world hangs on their every move to trounce and eliminate those who do not believe as do they — that would be all non-Christian’s, the Islamofascists, the Cold War leftovers and … us.

If you follow the debates, you will find almost no similarities in the issues being discussed by the two parties — the Pubs are obsessed with “protecting democracy” without a nuanced understanding of how they’re disemboweling it; I won’t speak to the cold calculations of their leadership, but they know their base and they pander to its fears. The letters written to Judge Walton on Scooter’s behalf … from Cheney, Kissinger, Wolfowitz … should tell us how they think; they are unaware that THEY are criminals in the public eye, that THEIR credibility is in shreds, that THEY may be the next target of public inquiry — or, if they are aware, on any level, then they are blatantly arrogant to think the public unable to respond to their power-mongering. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

ALL of these people, and others, wrote to tell Walton what a wonderful human being Scooter is, how LOYAL [duh!!] to a fault, how fine a character he has. He was simply so put-upon by all that was required of him that he was unable to remember dates and faces — and that deserves compassion instead of punishment. Ultimately then, the Dems are craven and Fitz corrupt to pursue this — and Dubby had better make it right, rescue Scooter double-quick, or he’ll lose even more of his Pub base.

This snip from one of the letters is telling:

Lewis A. Hoffman, the vice president’s White House physician, asked Judge Reggie B. Walton to understand “the mindset that was pervasive” in the vice president’s office after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the “real fear about what the future held.”

THIS is the semi-hysterical, knee-jerk gut-clenching going-off-half-cocked mindset that has created our current problems in the nation and around the globe. THIS is what has to end if we are to return to sanity … and THIS is where Dick Cheney lives in his heart of hearts [sic.]

Mitt Romney is a good example of this consciousness — at the last debate, he declared the war justified because Saddam kicked out the inspectors … and MSM has been conspicuously silent in correcting him; they just give these things a pass, as the typical daily fare on the Republican menu. A few days earlier, Dick Cheney spoke to Wyoming High School students, and insisted yet again that Iraq was linked to 9/11. Duncan Hunter, a particularly painful thorn in the side of my San Diego homey’s and barely a second-tier candidate, made “grossly inaccurate” statements at the debate about the immigration raid at the Iowa meat packing plant, but only a few small papers and the quick-witted bloggers have commented.

I truly think the line has blended between cherry-picked facts to buoy the Republican position, and what they actually believe. They rework any piece of information they can to fit their ideological issue, even if they have to pound a square bit of intelligence into a round hole. It’s no wonder that Ron Paul is odd-man-out at these gab-fests … reality is not welcome at the Republican podium. The Kool Aid is their life. And the truly good news of the day … maybe the decade … is that there are FAR FEWER CITIZENS drinking it. Public opinion polls indicate that Dr. Paul “won” the debate — reality is starting to look pretty damned good!

This post includes both the pardon issue and news of Uncle Dick’s fingers in the Spygate affair, smack on the trigger of a smoking gun — and I know none of you will be surprised. Libby is first on our plate, though, and we’ll start with Froomkin … remember, there are a gazillion links in any Froomkin piece, in case you want to follow up. I particularly enjoyed Blumenthal’s piece, second — he, as did I, flashed on The Manchurian Candidate when reading those letters. Farther down, you’ll find Cheney news and views — and last, another sponsor for his Bill of Impeachment, currently sitting quietly in Congress.

Jude

What About the Rule of Law?
Dan Froomkin, WaPost
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Suppose President Bush pardons Scooter Libby.

How will he explain it to the American people?

Will he say Libby’s prosecution, conviction and sentencing were all a terrible miscarriage of justice? How could he say that without eroding the rule of law? Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is considered beyond reproach by career federal prosecutors, the jury was of Libby’s peers, and the judge — a Bush appointee — said the proof of Libby’s guilt was “overwhelming.”

Will Bush say Libby just had an unfortunate memory lapse caused by the strain of pressing national security work? That’s an argument that strains the credulity of all but the most die-hard Libby supporters. After all, Libby didn’t just fail to recall something — he assertively made up a story that was resoundingly contradicted by the evidence.

Will Bush say Libby’s unfortunate mistake is forgivable considering the public service he performed as the vice president’s chief of staff? That might be the easiest rationale for the public to swallow. But Libby has never admitted he made a mistake. He’s expressed no remorse. Can Bush forgive someone who is not asking for forgiveness?

Will Bush say that he doesn’t believe Libby should be punished since all he did was fall on a dagger aimed at the vice president? That’s possibly the most honest approach — though also the least likely.

Or will Bush say nothing at all, and stick to the strategy of stonewalling on this case? It’s a strategy that, in part because of the press corps’ lack of tenacity, has served him well thus far.

Washington is abuzz with pardon talk. The thinking appears to be that Bush will grant one before Libby has to go to prison, which could be as soon as the end of July. The pardon will cause Bush a little political damage — but what’s a little more political damage these days?

But this kind of thinking may underestimate the potential fury of the American public.

Pardoning Libby would send the public the message that this White House thinks it is above the law. It’s a point critics have made time and time again, whether it relates to the treatment of detainees, warrantless wiretapping or the purge of insufficiently partisan U.S. attorneys. But this time, the charge just might really stick.

Because Libby’s lies came in the context of a White House campaign to defend its actions in the run-up to war, pardoning him would inevitably call renewed attention to the most tragic and least forgivable mistake of Bush’s presidency: misleading the American people into a disastrous war. It could send the anti-war movement into overdrive.

And pardoning Libby — a lawbreaker who may have been acting under orders from his superiors — would finally and fully associate Bush in the public’s mind with the one transgression that has forced a president out of office in the modern age: A cover up.

Pardon Him?

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post:

“The sentence imposed on former White House aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby yesterday put President Bush in the position of making a decision he has tried to avoid for months: Trigger a fresh political storm by pardoning a convicted perjurer or let one of the early architects of his administration head to prison.

“The prospect of a pardon has become so sensitive inside the West Wing that top aides have been kept out of the loop, and even Bush friends have been told not to bring it up with the president. In any debate, officials expect Vice President Cheney to favor a pardon, while other aides worry about the political consequences of stepping into a case that stems from the origins of the Iraq war and renewing questions about the truthfulness of the Bush administration. . . .

“[S]ome White House advisers said the president’s political troubles are already so deep that a pardon might not be so damaging. Those most upset by the CIA leak case that led to the Libby conviction already oppose Bush, they noted. ‘You can’t hang a man twice for the same crime,’ a Republican close to the White House said.”

Neil A. Lewis writes in the New York Times:

“If Mr. Libby goes to prison, he will be the first senior White House official to do so since the days of Watergate, when several of President Richard M. Nixon’s top aides, including H. R. Haldeman and John D. Erlichman, served prison terms. . . .

“Several Republicans advisers close to the White House, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that they were perplexed as to why Mr. Bush seemed reluctant to acquiesce in pardoning Mr. Libby. Mr. Bush has pardoned more than 100 people so far, but none have been prominent.

“An intriguing question for many is what role Mr. Cheney will play in pressing Mr. Bush to grant a pardon.”

Bryan Bender writes in the Boston Globe:

“‘The question of the pardon is not if but when,’ said Stephen Hess, a professor at George Washington University. ‘The pressures from [Republican] loyalists and in the administration will be enormous. From the loyalists’ point of view, Libby was falling on his sword for the vice president.’”

But Paul Bedard writes for U.S. News:

“Even as top Republicans are pressing President Bush to pardon former top vice presidential aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby for his conviction and sentencing in the CIA leak investigation, many party leaders and strategists say the whole case is a loser for the party.

“‘It’s just another nail in the Republican coffin,’ says GOP pollster and message guru Frank Luntz. ‘It makes the chances of winning back Congress bleak.’”

And Pete Yost writes for the Associated Press:

“While expressing support for I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, Cheney and President Bush are also in the position of being officials sworn to uphold the law, running the branch of government that prosecuted Libby.

“‘It’s a disappointment whenever a person who occupies a high office and takes an oath doesn’t respond to a demonstrated serious criminal event in a serious governmental way,’ former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Barrett said Tuesday night.

“‘It’s an adversary process and I understand the personal dimension, but the United States is the side of the case that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are on. Those are their jobs,’ said Barrett, now a law professor at St. John’s University in New York City.

“In the Valerie Plame case, Bush and particularly Cheney are more than mere friends of Libby, and more than mere disinterested public officials. Their actions are within the scope of the criminal investigation. Both were witnesses who underwent questioning by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.”

Cheney’s Statement

Here is the text of Cheney’s written statement in response to the sentencing. Cheney expresses his support for Libby, calls the episode a tragedy, and comes very close to calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice.

“Scooter has dedicated much of his life to public service at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House. In each of these assignments he has served the nation tirelessly and with great distinction. I relied on him heavily in my capacity as Secretary of Defense and as Vice President. I have always considered him to be a man of the highest intellect, judgment and personal integrity — a man fully committed to protecting the vital security interests of the United States and its citizens. Scooter is also a friend, and on a personal level Lynne and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy and its effect on his wife, Harriet, and their young children. The defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case. Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.”

As Yost writes for AP:

“Cheney’s statement is unusual historically, says presidential scholar Stanley Kutler, author of a well-known book on the Watergate scandal.

“‘I know of no time in Watergate where someone who was convicted got the warm embrace of those in power,’ said Stanley Kutler, author of ‘The Wars of Watergate.’”

Bush’s View of Pardons

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball wrote for Newsweek in March that:

“…there’s one significant roadblock on the path to Libby’s salvation: Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines.

“From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously. He’s taken an exceedingly stingy approach to pardons, granting only 113 in six years, mostly for relatively minor fraud, embezzlement and drug cases dating back more than two decades. Bush’s pardons are ‘fewer than any president in 100 years,’ according to Margaret Love, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department.”

The Justice Department regulations”require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,’ according to the Justice Web site.”

Isifoff and Hosenball noted:

“Moreover, in weighing whether to recommend a pardon, U.S. attorneys are supposed to consider whether an applicant is remorseful. ‘The extent to which a petitioner has accepted responsibility for his or her criminal conduct and made restitution to . . . victims are important considerations. A petitioner should be genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication,’ the Justice Web site states.”

At his very first press conference in February 2001, Bush was asked about President Clinton’s controversial last-minute pardons and responded that when it came to his own granting of pardons, “I’ll have the highest of high standards.”

In a Feb. 1 interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, Bush was asked about pardoning two Border Patrol officers convicted of civil rights violations, and reaffirmed his intention to follow the guidelines:

“BUSH: You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place. And what I told members of Congress who have written me or called was to just look at the case, look at the facts in the case.

“And people need to understand why these folks were sent to trial and why a jury of their peers convicted them. And that’s, of course, what a president does on any pardon request.

“CAVUTO: So, what are you saying?

“BUSH: I’m saying, I would look at all the facts. And — but there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decision. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process.”

The Sentencing

I wrote a bit about Libby’s sentencing in yesterday’s column, No Remorse, No Mercy.

David Corn blogs for the Nation:

“Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had asked Walton to incarcerate Libby for 30 to 37 months. At the hearing, prior to Walton’s ruling, Libby’s defense attorneys — Ted Wells and William Jeffress Jr. — contended that Libby should get off with probation. They threw several arguments at the judge. First, they claimed that the toughest sentencing guides should not be applied to Libby, echoing an argument put forward by Libby’s champions in rightwing circles: Nobody was ever charged with leaking the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, so the whole case was not such a big deal. Walton did not bite. Citing appeals court decisions, he noted that in an obstruction of justice case it’s the investigation that counts, not the ultimate outcome of the investigation. ‘Your position,’ Walton told Jeffress, ‘would seem to promote someone aggressively engaging in obstruction behavior.’”

Another defense argument was that Plame, who the CIA has identified as covert, nevertheless was not.

Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein write in The Washington Post:

“‘My take on it,’ [U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton] said, is that the trial did not prove Libby knew that Plame worked in an undercover capacity when he disclosed her identity to several reporters. Still, the judge added, ‘anybody at that high-level position had a unique and special obligation before they said anything about anything associated with a national security agency [to] . . . make every conceivable effort’ to verify their status before releasing information about them.

“‘While there is no evidence that Mr. Libby knew what the situation was, he surely did not take any efforts to find out,’ Walton said. ‘I think public officials need to know if they are going to step over the line, there are going to be consequences. . . . [What Libby did] causes people to think our government does not work for them.’”

The Scene

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post:

“You knew Scooter Libby was in trouble at yesterday’s sentencing hearing when his lawyer decided to read the judge a character reference — from Paul Wolfowitz. . . .

“Libby was pale and expressionless after the judge pronounced the 30-month sentence. Libby’s wife, Harriet Grant, lowered her head. The two left the courthouse ignoring shouted questions from reporters (’Are you disappointed?’) and taunts from demonstrators (’You’re a criminal!’).

“The only public display of emotion the couple allowed themselves was at the start of the day, when Grant wept while greeting Mary Matalin, a former colleague of her husband’s, with a tight hug.”

The Letters

Walton released all the letters he had received regarding Libby’s sentencing.

Here are excerpts compiled by the New York Times, highlights from The Smoking Gun, and a PDF of all 373 pages from the AP…

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post:

“The writers included some of the most prominent names in conservative thinking about foreign policy, as well as current and former senior government officials — Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Gen. Peter Pace and Henry A. Kissinger.”

Josh Gerstein writes in the New York Sun:

“The highest-ranking current official to weigh in on Libby’s behalf was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace. He called Libby a ’selfless’ official who always sought out ‘the right way to proceed — both legally and morally.’

“Absent from the sheaf of nearly 200 letters was any entreaty from Vice President Cheney, who was Libby’s boss from 2001 to 2005.”

Former senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), may have been more revealing than he realized when he wrote:

“During my years of friendship with Scooter, I found a single attribute which will always remain undiminished in my mind. That is the attribute of Loyalty — unswerving, unselfish, unwavering loyalty. One could also almost superimpose upon his brow the accolade ‘The Good Soldier.’ ” [empahsis added - J]

Stonewall Continues

Bush sat down for an unscheduled and highly unusual roundtable interview today with the reporters traveling with him on his European trip. He spoke for 45 minutes. And astonishingly, there was only one brief exchange related to Libby.

“Q Do you think it says something about you and Vice President Cheney, that you continue to embrace a man who has been convicted and sentenced?

” THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s a sad day for him, and my heart goes out to his family. And it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course. “

Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press about what Bush did talk about, little to none of which was apparently new.

Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush would have no comments on the Libby case until the legal process had run its course.

“Q When do you consider the process over?

“MS. PERINO: Well, I think when those appeals are exhausted is when it would be over…..

“Q Does the President think at some point it would be appropriate just to speak out about this? The guy has been sentenced. I mean, is he going to run out the clock and wait for all the appeals to be done before the President of the United States speaks about a pretty important matter that was perpetrated by a member of his staff?

“MS. PERINO: What I can tell you is how the President reacted today, which is to say that he does feel terrible for them, he thinks they’re going through a lot right now, they’ve been through a lot. But given the fact that the judge has set up a process for appeal and given the way that the President has handled this for the past year or so, he’s not going to intervene. . . .

” Q Has justice been served in this case?

” MS. PERINO: Brendan, I think that as regards to anyone, any American who has the right to see out a criminal justice procedure, I think that we have to afford him the same rights, just as we would give to anybody else and allow them to exhaust those appeals.”

Opinion Watch

The New York Times editorial board writes:

“The jail sentence and fine imposed on Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, are an appropriate — indeed necessary — punishment for his repeated lies to a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents investigating a possible smear campaign orchestrated by the White House. Although Mr. Libby plans to appeal, as he has every legal right to, the judge ought to send him to jail now as a lesson that such efforts to frustrate justice will not be tolerated. . . .

“At a time when high administration officials routinely dissemble and claim lapses of memory, immediate jail time for Mr. Libby, a convicted felon, is the best way to send a message that obstruction of justice will be severely punished.”

The Washington Post editorial board is oddly silent, at least for today.

Bruce Fein writes in the Washington Times:

“Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby deserves a stiff prison term to deter his erstwhile Bush administration colleagues, for example, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House political guru Karl Rove, from equivocating with Congress and the courts. A stiff punishment is imperative also to honor the rule of law, the nation’s crown jewel. . . .

“Nothing is as dangerous to the Constitution’s checks and balances and protections against government abuses as a belief among high-ranking officials that they are above the law and may lie or connive with impunity.”

Jane Hamsher blogs for Firedoglake:

“It is customary for those found guilty to express contrition during the sentencing phase, a factor that judges take very seriously when determining jail time. Libby expressed none. Zero, zip, bupkis. It was my impression during the trial watching Libby that he thought himself a great man to whom a terrible wrong has been done. Today Scooter’s career as a man on trial ended and his life as professional right wing victim began.”

And indeed, the National Review editorial board writes:

“President Bush should pardon Libby, and do it now. . . .

“Anyone who watched Libby’s trial knows it was a parade of conflicting memories, and reasonable people could disagree with the jury’s verdict.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes (subscription required):

“I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison yesterday, and yet the response from the White House was to turn its back on the Vice President’s former chief of staff. A spokesman said President Bush felt ‘terrible’ about the ordeal that Mr. Libby and his family have endured. But if that is true, Mr. Bush is a stroke of the pen away from ending that ordeal with a pardon. . . .

“[I]t was the cowardice and incompetence of [Bush's] Administration that led Mr. Libby to this pass. Feeling ‘terrible’ won’t keep his man out of prison.”

William Kristol writes for the Weekly Standard:

“So much for loyalty, or decency, or courage. For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he’s for as long as he doesn’t have to take any risks in its behalf; and courage — well, that’s nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush. Can one respect him still?”

++

The Libby lobby’s pardon campaign
Having never expressed remorse for his crime, Scooter Libby instead enlisted his neoconservative friends to win him reduced prison time.
Sidney Blumenthal, Salon
Jun. 07, 2007

Those who served most closely with him described their feelings with persuasive intensity. One after another they used the same words: “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” Gradually, however, Major Ben Marco breaks through his brainwashing to discover that Raymond Shaw is a sleeper agent programmed to install the Manchurian candidate as president.

One after another, in nearly the same language, in letters that Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged had been prompted by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, in his attempt to mitigate a harsh sentence for his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice, dozens of people described the former chief of staff to the vice president with the warmest feelings.

“I know Mr. Libby to be a patriot, a dedicated public servant, a strong family man, and a tireless, honorable, selfless human being,” wrote Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense.

“Mr. Libby was one of the most dedicated public servants I have known in my career,” wrote Eric Edelman, the undersecretary of defense for policy.

“I can say, without hesitation, that Scooter was among the finest and most selfless public officials with whom I have ever worked,” wrote John Hannah, Vice President Cheney’s national security advisor.

“Scooter Libby is one of the most genuine, kind, hardworking and patriotic people I know,” wrote Elizabeth Denny, Cheney’s social secretary.

One after another, the letter writers declare that Libby’s “character” is “inconsistent” with the jury’s verdict. These same words — “character” and “inconsistent” — appear dozens of times.

“The Scooter Libby I have known for a number of years now is someone about whom such crimes as perjury and obstruction of justice seem as improbable to me as life on Mars,” wrote Midge Decter, the neoconservative writer. Her husband, Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative editor emeritus of Commentary magazine, wrote: “Like everyone else who knows him, I find it inconceivable that a man of his sterling character, who is also famous for his lawyerly scrupulousness, could deliberately have told lies to a grand jury, or for that matter to anyone else.” (Decter and Podhoretz’s son-in-law, Elliott Abrams, convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal and subsequently pardoned, is a deputy national security advisor.)

Unmoved by these letters, Judge Reggie Walton imposed a sentence of two and a half years and a $250,000 fine, and told Libby, “Your lies blocked an extremely serious investigation, and as a result you will indeed go to prison.” Almost immediately, Cheney praised Libby’s “personal integrity,” and added his wish that the sentence will be overturned on appeal: “Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.” Thus, Cheney encouraged his former chief of staff to maintain his steadfast refusal to implicate his former boss in the crimes Libby felt compelled to cover up with his lies to the grand jury.

To be sure, others convicted of crimes often submit similar testimonials before sentencing. But most of those who throw themselves on the mercy of the court express sorrow at what they have done. Libby, however, refused to show remorse. He offered no contrition, only an exercise in victimhood. Like the child who has killed his parents and demands mercy for being an orphan, Libby tried to murder the truth and then got dozens of people to plead for leniency based on his good character.

The act of procuring these letters is further evidence of Libby’s stove-piping of disinformation. Libby could not reasonably have expected to sway the judge, but there is a higher authority to which he is appealing. These letters constitute the beginnings of the Libby Lobby’s pardon campaign.

Ironically, the longest, most detailed and among the most personal letters supporting Libby is also the most damaging. In “Re: Character Reference for I. Lewis Libby,” Paul Wolfowitz writes, “I am currently serving, until June 30 of this year, as President of the World Bank.” Either obtusely or obliquely, Wolfowitz’s opening line emphasizes the symbiotic nature of their careers, both men having fallen from grace within weeks of each other after years of collaboration. “It is painful for me to reflect on the fact that his life would have been very different if we had never met. He would almost certainly now be a successful attorney in Philadelphia.” Wolfowitz describes their 35-year association, going back to when he was an assistant professor at Yale and Libby was his assistant, and how he recruited Libby to serve as his assistant in the State Department and then in the Defense Department. According to Wolfowitz’s account, Libby was an indispensable man in ending the Cold War, winning the Gulf War and waging the “global war on terror.” But he was also, Wolfowitz writes, of “service to individuals.”

The leading example he offers is a stunning revelation, which does not reflect on Libby’s charity, compassion and sympathy as Wolfowitz might imagine. The story about Libby “involves his effort to persuade a newspaper not to publish information that would have endangered the life of a covert CIA agent working overseas. Late into the evening, long after most others had left the matter to be dealt with the next day, Mr. Libby worked to collect the information that was needed to persuade the editor not to run the story.”

Unintentionally and foolishly, Wolfowitz has hanged the guilty man again. Wolfowitz’s defense of Libby is composed with the same care and skill that Wolfowitz brought to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, creating the opposite effects of what he desired. In this bizarre disclosure, rather than exculpating Libby, Wolfowitz incriminates him; for this story is damning evidence of Libby’s state of mind — that he knew he was engaged in wrongdoing in leaking the identity of a CIA covert operative, Valerie Plame Wilson, to two reporters, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine, and in vouchsafing it to White House press secretary Ari Fleischer for the purpose of his leaking it to the press, which he promptly did.

In their filings and sentence pleading, Libby’s lawyers argued repeatedly that he did not know that Plame was covert, that he did not “knowingly disclose classified material,” and, as his lead attorney, Ted Wells, told the jury in his closing statement, that Libby acted in “good faith,” always believing that he was operating within the law. On Oct. 30, 2006, his lawyers filed a claim denying that “any damage to the national security, the CIA, or Ms. Wilson herself was, or could have been, caused by the disclosure of that status.”

Once again, Wolfowitz has blundered. Just as he has undone himself at the World Bank, this time he has inadvertently exposed Libby’s “good faith” for bad faith. Indeed, the Wolfowitz letter shows that Libby knew the consequences of revealing the “status” of a CIA operative. As evidence introduced in the CIA leak case proved, Cheney had confided the secret to him and ordered him to spread it. But Libby has never mentioned the previous incident of apparently trying to protect a covert CIA operative. If Wolfowitz remembers the story, and it’s credible, so Libby must recall it too. Therefore, he must also have known that his defense was based on false premises contrary to what he understood to be right and how he had acted in the past. He sent his attorneys to court to make a case he consciously knew was wrong from his own prior experience of having protected a national security asset from exposure. One can only wonder if Libby ever told his lawyers the story that Wolfowitz has recounted or whether he misled them, too.

The sentencing letters in support of Libby are a treasure trove of ironies and hypocrisies, pointing to the past actions of the epistolary authors or Libby. Seeking to arouse sympathy for his former disciple, Wolfowitz writes, “Harriet and Scooter Libby are both deeply loving parents and the suffering of their children has been a torture for them both.” The word “torture” is an especially artless choice. Libby, in fact, was instrumental in Bush’s torture policy, even browbeating and isolating administration officials who raised questions about it, as one of them who was subject to Libby’s scorn told me.

Yet Douglas Feith, a former undersecretary of defense, wrote in a letter, “Scooter showed an admirable concern for preserving civil liberties.” In the Pentagon, Feith oversaw the Office of Special Plans, constructed as a parallel intelligence operation apart from the regular channels to give a stamp of approval to what turned out uniformly to be disinformation about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and supposed links to terrorism. These falsehoods, collected almost exclusively from the neoconservatives’ favorite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi, were siphoned from the OPS to the OVP (Office of the Vice President), where Libby was in charge of packaging them. Libby and Cheney appeared at CIA headquarters numerous times, occasions on which Libby forced analysts to respond to his relentless interrogatories in order to get them to give their stamp of authority that the information was true. Within the CIA, the analysts even began to prepare for these visits with “murder boards,” according to former CIA director George Tenet’s memoir, “At the Center of the Storm.” He quotes a senior analyst: “Were they trying to push us and drive us? Absolutely.” Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected “one of Libby’s lengthy briefs out of hand as a basis for his Feb. 5, 2003, speech before the United Nations Security Council on Saddam’s WMD and al-Qaida connections, but nonetheless still delivered a speech replete with disinformation. (Powell and Tenet were not among those who wrote letters on Libby’s behalf.)

Another letter writer, John Bolton, defended Libby’s perjury merely as a lapse of “perfect recall.” He also offered opinions on the handling of intelligence. “With classified information, it was frequently hard to know who was cleared to see what or what could be discussed with whom. If there is anyone who fully understands our ’system’ for protecting classified information, I have yet to meet him.” Bolton, the former U.N. ambassador and undersecretary of state for arms control, was Cheney and Libby’s ally within the State Department, blocking and spying on Powell. Bolton gamed the “system” to keep information from Powell, sought to intimidate State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau analysts into accepting his skewed views, and tried to reassign them when they did not bend. Libby, for his part, was also crucial in blackballing Foreign Service officers, experienced in nation building, who were involved in Powell’s elaborate “Future of Iraq” project.

Kenneth Adelman, a neoconservative former member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, who had declared that the war in Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” wrote a letter for Libby, too. “Your Honor,” he wrote, “this is punishment enough. Hence I ask that this decent man not be subjected to time in jail, and allowed to cope with his conviction as best as anyone could in these circumstances. After all, Scooter Libby is a good person.”

A neoconservative is a Bush administration official who has mugged reality and claims he’s the victim. Neoconservatism has now been reduced to a clemency plea. ++

Letters Cast Light on Cheney’s Inner Circle
Dozens of Prominent Figures and Insiders Praise Libby as Fundamentally Decent
Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

For nearly seven years, the office of the vice president has been a virtual black hole for information about the Bush administration. But yesterday, a series of letters aimed at securing leniency for Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, provided a small, if selective, window on the world of Cheney and his aides.

Lewis A. Hoffman, the vice president’s White House physician, asked Judge Reggie B. Walton to understand “the mindset that was pervasive” in the vice president’s office after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the “real fear about what the future held.”

“I can tell you for certain that Mr. Libby worked himself to exhaustion day after day,” Hoffman wrote in a letter dated April 26. “This is a testimony to his devotion to our nation and the Vice President. I also believe that such continuous stress and total exhaustion is just the setting where a person might honestly confuse what he said to who on what day.”

Elizabeth A. Denny, who worked with Libby as the vice president’s social secretary, wrote that her “heart broke” the day Libby walked out of the White House after his indictment on perjury charges in 2005. “I could feel a vacuum sucking the wind out of our office, out of the White House,” she said. “I could feel his absence immediately in a very large way. I still can’t figure it out.”

The letters were among more than 150 released by the U.S. District Court in Washington shortly before Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $250,000 fine.

Most came from former colleagues and law partners, friends, neighbors and players in Libby’s regular touch football game — as well as a collection of prominent conservative intellectuals — who urged the judge to take into account what they described as a lifetime of selfless public service and devotion to family. Some appear to have been solicited by Libby’s lawyers; other letter writers said they were writing voluntarily to try to provide a fuller view of Libby’s life.

“I regard him as among the most gifted and valuable public servants of his generation,” wrote Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of conservative opinion journal Commentary. “I find it inconceivable that a man of his sterling character, who is also famous for his lawyerly scrupulousness, could deliberately have told lies to a grand jury, or for that matter to anyone else.”

A smaller number came from ordinary citizens who expressed outrage over Libby’s actions and urged the stiffest possible sentence.

“The message sent by this man’s actions and the posturing of his cronies that Mr. Libby has been convicted wrongfully for innocent misstatements, at most legal technicalities, is an appalling approval of outrageous behavior that undermines the justice system and undermines faith in government,” wrote Steven C. Hychka, whose home address was blacked out by the court, as were all the others.

The writers included some of the most prominent names in conservative thinking about foreign policy, as well as current and former senior government officials — Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Gen. Peter Pace and Henry A. Kissinger.

“He is a man of strong views, some of which I do not share,” Kissinger wrote. “But in my observations, he pursued his objectives with integrity and a sense of responsibility. I would never have associated his actions for which he was convicted with his character. . . . Having served in the White House and under pressure, I have seen how difficult it sometimes is to recall precisely a particular sequence of events. This does not justify the action, but it might help you consider mitigating circumstances.”

Cheney did not write a letter. His spokeswoman declined to answer questions about the case, saying his statement after the sentencing — which lamented the sentence and praised Libby — spoke for itself. She said she did not know whether aides wrote letters on their own or were solicited by Cheney’s lawyers.

Some letters came from prominent Democrats, including Richard Danzig, secretary of the Navy during the Clinton administration, and James Carville, who signed a supportive message with his wife, Mary Matalin.

Several letter writers, even some who indicated they disagreed with Libby, said they found Libby to be a man of uncommon decency. “While he has been portrayed in the press as an ideologue and highly partisan, this characterization is very far from the truth in all of my dealings with him over the years,” wrote Francis Fukuyama, a prominent foreign-policy thinker. “To the contrary, in my discussions with him on issues from Middle East diplomacy to his work on the Cox Commission to the Iraq war, he has always been open to different views and notably without rancor.”

Like Kissinger, other letter writers sought to buttress a major line of Libby’s defense, that he innocently forgot some of his conversations in the Valerie Plame case because of his crushing workload. John R. Bolton, the former U.N. ambassador, wrote of how “information flowed across his desk on a daily basis like water coming out of a high-pressure fire hydrant, with more demands for action than could humanly be met.”

“In the face of all these demands, keeping every detail straight is impossible,” Bolton wrote.

Others offered details of what they described as Libby’s crucial role in key administration decisions. Former ambassador and White House aide Robert D. Blackwill called Libby a “crucial voice” in President Bush’s decision to accelerate transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

“Sadly I believe that Mr. Libby’s premature departure from the Administration has been a major reason for the downward spiral of the situation in Iraq and the consuming mess in which we find ourselves today regarding that country,” he wrote.

Many letter writers expressed frustration over the Libby saga’s conclusion. Former senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) wrote that he “shall always remain eternally puzzled how the situation ever ‘came to this.’ Some are of the opinion that he has ‘fallen upon his sword’ and yet, it is my perception that the sword has fallen upon him!”

[open link for] LETTERS FROM THE LIBBY TRIAL

The following letters — both supporting and criticizing Scooter Libby — were sent to Judge Reggie B. Walton. They are organized in alphabetical order by the name of the sender. ++

Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps
Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference
Dan Eggen, Washington Post
Thursday, June 7, 2007

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

Comey’s disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Comey said that Cheney’s office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey’s responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general. He faces possible congressional votes of no-confidence because of his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

“How are you, General?” Gonzales asked Ashcroft at the hospital, according to Comey.

“Not well,” replied Ashcroft, who had just undergone gallbladder surgery and was battling pancreatitis.

The new details follow Comey’s gripping testimony last month about the visit by Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then President Bush’s chief of staff, to Ashcroft’s hospital bed on the night of March 10, 2004. The two Bush aides tried to persuade Ashcroft to renew the authorization of the NSA surveillance program, after Comey and other Justice Department officials had said they would not certify the legality of the effort, according to the testimony and other officials.

Ashcroft refused, noting that Comey had been designated as acting attorney general during his illness.

The episode prompted sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned whether Gonzales and Card were attempting to take advantage of a sick man to get around legal objections from government lawyers. It is unclear who directed the two Bush aides to make the visit.

Democrats said yesterday that the new details from Comey raise further questions about the role of Cheney and other White House officials in the episode.

“Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while — that White House hands guided Justice Department business,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer ( D-N.Y.). “The vice president’s fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?”

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the surveillance program “was always subject to rigorous oversight and review. . . . We have acknowledged that there have been disagreements about other intelligence activities, as one would expect.”

Democrats have criticized Gonzales for testifying last year that there were no “serious disagreements” about the program.

According to Comey, the hospital visit was preceded by a March 9, 2004, meeting at the White House on the Justice Department objections. It was attended by Cheney; Gonzales; Card; Cheney’s counsel then, David S. Addington; and others, Comey said.

Comey also named eight Justice Department officials who were prepared to quit if the White House had not backed down, including FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, current U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria and Jack Goldsmith, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel and led an internal legal review of the surveillance program.

Comey said that the review “focused on current operations during late 2003 and early 2004, and the legal basis for the program.” He declined to answer detailed questions about the program or the review, citing restrictions on classified information.

Bush confirmed the existence of the surveillance effort after news reports in December 2005, saying it was authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was vital to protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. The program has since been put under the auspices of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees clandestine eavesdropping in the United States. ++

Staff writer Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.

Cheney Is No Joke
Jane Smiley, The Huffington Post
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

One of the most irritating editorials of the week-end was the New York TImes piece on Dick Cheney, entitled “Dick Cheney Rules”. On Monday, it was one of the Times’ most emailed pieces. Surely the reason for such popularity is the list of Cheney’s crimes, not the tone of the piece, which is ironic, but not, I am sorry to say, bitterly ironic. The tone is, in fact, playful. Among Cheney’s major transgressions, he “seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to ‘demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States’.” And it points out Cheney’s tens of millions of dollars in profits from his Halliburton connection. But then editorial limply observes that “Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States,” and ends. What? Where’s the call for impeachment? This editorial makes Cheney the monster sound like an eccentric but meaningless old coot like the Dad on Frasier.

Not a page or two from the Cheney editorial is an op-ed by Edward Wong called “Iraq’s Curse: A Thirst For Final, Crushing Victory”, in which the author reflects upon the desires on the part of most Iraqi groups to see their enemies killed, dismembered, and dragged through the streets. Well, excuse me, but, I have to say, I can sympathize.

I’ve been reading lately about my home state, Missouri, during and after the Civil War, and it’s enlightening these days to think about those days. The similarities of the Civil War in Kansas and Missouri (between 1856 and 1865) to the war in Iraq are striking. Just to refresh your memory, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, repealing the Missouri Compromise and giving “Kansans” the right to choose whether as a state, Kansas was going to be slave or free, settlers poured into the territory from the north and the south, and many of those were from the two most extremely ideological states, Massachusetts and South Carolina. These immigrants hated each other on sight, and Kansas was soon known all over the country as “Bloody Kansas”. Radicals on both sides gained experience in violence and hatred. One of these was John Brown, who murdered five slaveholders in southern Kansas Territory in 1856 and another was William Quantrill, a Missouri border guerrilla who massacred a hundred and fifty Union sympathizers in Lawrence, Kansas in 1863. The Union sympathizers, in particular, made sure to be armed with the latest technology–Sharps rifles. If they had had IEDs, they would have used them. The Civil War in Kansas and Missouri was terrifying to both sides exactly for the reason that the Iraq War is terrifying–no side predominated, neighbor hated and distrusted neighbor, revenge was a primary motivator, and everyone was well-armed. All due respect to Mr. Wong, but the Iraqis aren’t unique in their thirst for reduction of the enemy to nothing. Civil wars, and especially civil wars in territories where loyalties are divided, like Missouri and Kansas, inevitably produce just such sentiments.

Since this is a long standing human pattern, witnessed with perfect clarity in the nineties in the Balkans and elsewhere, you might have thought that the Neocons would have paused to consider what they were unleashing in Iraq when they started the current civil war there. But no. When Cheney decided he had to have control of Iraqi oil, no amount of blood–whether shed by Americans or by Iraqis themselves–was considered to be too high a price to pay. And, unable to learn, feel remorse, or admit error, Cheney persists in his quest. Still, the New York Times considers this all a bit funny. He’s privatized the vice-presidency, but hey, so what, life goes on.

Lots of Americans don’t consider this funny at all–Dennis Kucinich has a Resolution of Impeachment before the Congress, and Cheney is the one to be impeached. If you want to add your name to the petition supporting it, you can go here. They need money, too, for ads. The thing is, it’s important that Cheney be impeached, and, hopefully, investigated, indicted, and imprisoned. His crime of flouting laws and undermining, if not destroying, the American government we thought we had is equal to his crime of causing the death and injury of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. To put it simply, Cheney has been instrumental in rolling back the rule of law in both the US and Iraq and returning both nations to a state where vengeance is the only recourse people have to redress the wrongs done to them. He has enhanced his own power, limited the legitimate power of the government over his actions, and flouted every sort of rule that might inconvenience either him or his pocketbook. He has operated in secrecy, and shown indifference to even the appearance of legitimacy and fairness.

When those in power exercise it in an unjust manner, they destroy the sense of trust that average citizens have in their own government and their own society and they open the society to the return of revenge as a sentiment and as an act. American history is replete with examples of how long it has taken and how difficult it has been for us as a nation to escape vengeance as a social mechanism–Kansas and Missouri, vigilantes and lynching, gangs and outlaws. Cheney’s specific crimes are reason enough for the New York Times to take impeachment seriously, but his larger crime against the nation has been to roll back the clock and infuse people like me, liberals like me (whom we all know are wimps, right?) with vengeful sentiments and fantasies. We have the crimes, then we have the arrogance–since the 2000 election, Cheney has been adding insult to injury, here and in Iraq. The combination is a potent one–the injuries damage our lives; the insults make us mad (both angry and crazy). The antidote is the exercise of laws, such as Kucinich’s articles of impeachment. I have news for the New York Times–if you assume that this is all going to pass away with another election season, you are dangerously wrong. ++

BREAKING: Five US Reps Support Cheney Impeachment
Matthew Cardinale, Atlanta Progressive News
June 06, 2007

(APN) ATLANTA – US Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) has become the fifth total co-sponsor of US Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) bill to impeach Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. In addition to Kucinich, the additional three Members of Congress who have signed on to H. Res 333 are US Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), William Lacy Clay (D-MO), and Albert Wynn (D-MD).

“This Administration has continued to erode the trust of the American people and enough is simply enough,” stated US Rep. Clarke in a press release issued first to Atlanta Progressive News.

” H.Res. 333 was introduced to the House of Representatives by Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio on April 24, 2007, and asserts that the vice president manipulated intelligence to make the case for going to war with Iraq, falsified a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and has threatened aggression against Iran,” US Rep. Clarke says.

“When the American people voted on November 7th, they asked for a change in direction by electing the Democratic party in the House and Senate. I have heard the loud cries of my constituents, and they want accountability. My support of HRes 333 reflects the voices of the residents of central Brooklyn.”

Congresswoman Clarke replaced US Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), who retired at the end of the 109th Session. US Rep. Owens had been one of the early supporters of Conyers’s bill, H Res 635, which would have created a Select Committee to look into the possible grounds for impeaching President Bush.

Congresswoman Clarke is her own woman and “does not follow the crowd,” her spokesperson said, adding that constituents had regularly lobbied her to co-sponsor this bill.

“Vice President Dick Cheney is the architect of the Administration’s deception about the war. Cheney persistently and deliberately deceived the Congress and the American people about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and the attack on September 11th. There should be a serious dialogue about the conduct of this Administration. Cheney should be held accountable for purposely misleading the American people. Despite the obvious lack of success on the ground, Vice President Cheney continued a barrage of propaganda claiming that we were winning the war and successfully rebuilding Iraq which is patently false. His statements and representations about the situation in Iraq amount to malfeasance for which he should be taken to task,” said Wynn in a press release prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.

Impeachment activist Tracie Stern of Atlanta World Can’t Wait said the new co-sponsorships are exciting, but at the same time, the case for impeachment is so clear that these Members of Congress are actually just doing their duty.

Those Members who do not co-sponsor H Res 333 are enabling the Bush Adminstration, Stern said, adding “People need to step on to the stage of history.”

“At the urging of my constituents in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, and from Americans across the country, I cosponsored Congressman Kucinich’s resolution regarding the impeachment of the Vice President because I believe that Mr. Cheney deliberately manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the Congress of the United States and the American people. That deception has resulted in a tragic, unnecessary war that has already cost the lives of over 3,300 brave Americans and has cost the taxpayers over $400 billion. The arrogant abuse of power and the complete disregard for the truth needs to stop,” US Rep. Clay said in a statement prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.

US Rep. Schakowsky (D-IL) recently told The Daily Northwestern college newspaper that Cheney misled the public by “intentionally manipulating intelligence in order to launch an elective war against Iraq. I believe it is crucial that the U.S. House of Representatives investigate the vice president’s actions to determine if he should be impeached for lying to the American people to justify the war in Iraq.”

Missing in action was US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) who had told WAOK radio in December 2005 he would sign a bill of impeachment of President Bush should it come across his desk [crimes committed by Bush would equally apply to Cheney in this case]. Of course, Lewis did not cosponsor US Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s (D-GA) bill filed at the end of the last Session which would have impeached Bush either.

Other MIAs include US Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) who recently made comments that she thought impeaching Cheney was a good idea, as reported by AfterDowningStreet.org [Waters's Office has not returned a call seeking comment]; and US Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who supported impeachment in the Minnesota legislature and campaigned for US Congress on the issue. This list could go on.

The new cosponsorships on Kucinich’s bill are significant for a number of reasons. First, it shows there is more than one Member of Congress willing to entertain real accountability for the Bush Administration, despite the insistence of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that impeachment is off the table.

Also, this bill is calling for actual Articles of Impeachment for Cheney, unlike the last bill which not only was related to Mr. Bush, but created an investigative committee to look into possible impeachment rather than providing for actual possible impeachment.

Therefore, cosponsorships on H Res 333 have even more weight than those which were listed on H Res 635 last Session.

Also, since the time of H Res 635, Democrats have taken control of both the US House and Senate. Thus, impeachment is even more a real possibility on account of having the potential Democratic support for the bill, even though most Democrats currently aren’t rushing to impeach Bush.

Because Democrats are now the Majority in Congress, we also now know that Bush refuses to be accountable to Congress, particularly on the US Invasion of Iraq. Bush has now vetoed historic legislation to attach funding for the Occupation with a deadline for withdrawal. Thus, it is now even more clear that traditional oversight mechanisms will not be effective.

The House Judiciary Committee told APN there are no plans to have hearings on impeachment of Cheney or anyone else at this time.

“It’s not at this time on the Committee’s immediate agenda,” Conyers’s spokesperson said.

“Once its referred it has to be on the Committee’s agenda for the Committee to take it up,” they said.

“In order to move a bill you have to have hearings scheduled on it,” they said.

When asked by APN if Conyers taking impeachment “off the table” meant based on present information or whether it was complete abdication of a constitutional mechanism no matter what information comes forward, “All we can speak to is the present time,” the spokesperson said, adding it would be unwise to speculate about the future.

“I don’t think it’s prejudging,” they said.

The 39 total co-sponsors of H Res. 635 were US Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep. Jackson, Jr., (D-IL), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Rep. John Olver (D-MA), Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Dianne Watson (D-CA), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and Rep. David Wu (D-OR).

It was largely viewed that US Rep. Conyers, the original sponsor of H Res 635, did not re-file his bill out of respect to Pelosi and his desire to be appointed Chair of the Judiciary Committee. Moreover, several Members of Congress have stated that they have followed in Conyers’s steps in choosing not to introduce similar bills of their own. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Add comment June 7th, 2007