Bush vs. Justice (in the trial of Scooter Libby)

The Bush Administration is to politics what Enron was to business – an enterprise predicated on bending the rules until the system breaks. The Bush Administration’s stock, of course, has taken another hit with the felony conviction of Lewis “Scooter” Libby (an aide so close to the vice-president he was known as “Cheney’s Cheney”). But the real crime here wasn’t Libby’s lies, but the offenses his lies were meant to cover up.

“There is a cloud over the vice-president” Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rightly surmised before the verdict was rendered. But Cheney was not in the dock because leaking classified information, smearing critics, and misleading the public about the war are not criminal offenses if the vice-president or president does it. Lying before Congress may be impeachable, but deceiving the public is not. Fitzgerald, given his narrow mandate, never discovered that a crime was committed when covert agent Valerie Plame’s name was leaked to the media. The administration was clearly either irresponsible or vindictive in the way it casually disclosed classified information, but the law has little to say about negligence or the politics of personal destruction.

It is clear, however, that the administration was not being truthful with the public on this matter or on the war. President Bush promised the American people that anyone from his administration involved in leaking the classified information in question would be fired. If Bush were a man of his word, then Karl Rove would have cleaned out his desk after testimony proved the president’s chief political advisor was one source of the leak.

Critics of Libby’s guilty verdict claim that the administration had every right to discredit their critics, especially Joe Wilson. Prosecuting Libby, they assert, amounts to criminalizing politics. This defense hardly holds water. If no crime had been committed, then Libby’s only motive to lie – and it is now obvious that he did lie – was to protect Bush and Cheney from political damage before the 2004 election. Of course, it’s possible that Libby’s deceptions were meant to cover up activities Bush and Cheney would want to keep hidden from a special prosecutor, actions that have still not come to light.

The prosecution charged that Libby’s lies amounted to “throwing sand in a referees eyes.” This has been the Bush Administration modus operandi since Bush vs. Gore. It’s ironic that lying under oath in the absence of an underling crime can get you in jail, but deceiving the public about matter as grave as going to war isn’t even prosecutable. The jurors intuited this, asking, “Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?” One of the other guys in question is preparing a pardon for Libby. If the script plays out Libby will stretch out his appeal as long as possible and Bush will pardon him the day he leaves office. It’s all as legal as Bush vs. Gore, but the entire farce will be devoid of justice.

The Bush Administration knows how to bend the rules, and they know how to take the refs out of the game. But they’re oblivious as to why the rules matter in the first place. When Enron bent the rules to the breaking point it cost investors their retirement savings. The Bush administration has done much of the same thing, but the costs will be far higher. Unlike Ken Lay, however, Bush has a “get out of jail free” card. In pardoning Libby he really be pardoning Dick Cheney and himself.

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