WaaHoo!!!
Finally, someone takes a fall for that incredible violation against our country and intelligence. AND it was someone who was actually involved - BONUS!
I was reading FoxNews.com (just to get the "fair and balanced"- or "crazy conservative"- point of view on this) and it was full of comments that supported Bush pardoning Libby. Most said that he shouldn't serve jail time because he didn't commit a crime or a "real" crime. Others said that his being in jail serves no purpose so he should just go free.
Well, he did commit a crime, hence the trial by jury and guilty verdict. And it was a real crime. He was being questioned during an investigation and deliberately lied to the investigators to cover-up the truth and hinder, if not altogether stop, the judicial system from doing their job. As far as his jail time not serving a purpose, why not set all criminals free? What good does it do having them in jail?
1. So they can't commit more crimes.
2. As a deterrent to other criminals.
Why have laws if you are not going to do anything if people break them? Anyone who watches those damn nanny shows can clearly see why the kids are such assholes - they are not held accountable for their actions.
This is also being compared to Clinton's lie. No, he shouldn't have lied; but what the hell business was it of any grand jury what he was doing with another consenting adult? Yeah, it was a shitty thing to do to his family - but really had nothing to do with what he was hired to do. And it certainly was not threatening the security of our nation.
What Libby did was a threat to the security of this nation. It was a threat to the safety of Plame and other CIA agents. A complete disregard toward the sensitivity of the information that he was privy to. I don't work for the White House or the government and I knew you shouldn't give out the names of CIA agents!! And the whole argument that she wasn't covert is a moot point as SHE'S A FRICKIN' CIA OPERATIVE!! People aren't supposed to know what she is or isn't doing!*
Anyway, I would be ecstatic about the verdict; however, I know that he did not do this on his own - and I'm pretty sure that the real brains behind it will never be held accountable for their actions. Those assholes.
*Besides, she was covert.
from Wikepedia:
Larry C. Johnson is "a former CIA analyst who was in Plame's officer training class in 1985-86," and left the Agency in 1989. He served as Deputy Director for Special Operations, Transportation Security, and Anti-Terrorism Assistance in the U.S. State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism until October 1993. On 13 June 2005, posting as an invited "Special guest" in a blog called tmpcafe.com, Johnson stated that, prior to Novak's column of 14 July 2003, Valerie Plame was indeed a "non-official cover" (NOC) operative:
Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak. . . . Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover--in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card.
A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.
The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.
When it comes from an administration that labels clipping from major newspapers as 'highly classified', it's kind of difficult to take seriously the claim that outing an undercover agent is 'no big deal'.