"Washington X-Ray"


Rick Perlstein looks through the window "official" Washington opened on itself re: Scooter's Goin' to the Pokey.

Personally , I find the Libby letters fascinating, an unmatched window into that most baffling of questions for ordinary citizens: how Washington thinks, especially, but not exclusively, its rightward precincts.

Of course, it's fascinating to see Henry Kissinger's name invoked as any kind of reliable witness, character as otherwise. But that's been a Washington disease for decades...

Similar verbal mobius strips are on offer from our friend Richard Perle...And James Woolsey...Or...Douglas Feith...And Alan Simpson: "all of this is so totally inconsistent with the basic attributes and the reputation of the man I know."

It's just, like, magic: a man who had never acted a certain way in his life, just suddenly started acting that certain way. Inscrutable indeed. It's easier to understand, even to respect, the cronyist buncombe say, of a Paul Wolfowitz: "He rarely talks about his motivation, but it is clear to me that it is in the noblest spirit of selfless service," "Despite some of the malicious gossip about him, I also know that Mr. Libby is one of the least partisan individuals you will find in Washington," yada yada yada. At least the only sin there is bathos...

John Bolton's letter is fascinating - an insiderish version of the kind of terrorist scare mongering that issues from Karl Rove's shop. He gives an intricate history of this dangerous world we live in and all the Bush administration initiatives to keep it at bat ("The attacks of September 11, shattering as they were, would be as nothing compared to a terrorist attack successfully using nuclear chemical or biological weapon. [ed. note: a lot of these guys apparently don't have comma keys on their, or their secretaries', computers]... Retaliation after the fact, however massive, could never bring back the innocent dead.... Preventing or defending against the use of these weapons has a small margin of risk, especially for those who are the potential targets. As the leader of one terrorist group once said to a Western leader: 'you have to get it right every time. We only have to get it right once.'"

Then the payoff: "In the face of all these demands, keeping every detail straight is impossible."

So there it is: yes, maybe he perjured himself. But only because he was so busy protecting us Armageddon. Don't you, dear judge, want us protected from Armageddon? (A bonus: that bit about "those who are the potential targets." In other words, Libby did all this heroic work for the American people with an al Queda bull's eye painted on his back!! What's a little obstruction of justice compared to that??)

Check out, too, the conservative victimology: "Harriet and Scooter Libby are both deeply loving parents and the suffering of their children has been a torture for them both"; "Despite some of the malicious gossip about him..."

There's interesting stuff, too, about a facet of the conservative thought-system I'll be writing more about in the future. I call the "Innocence Machine." It's in Doug Feith's letter, when he says "Scooter stood out in the government as a person of deeply philosophical outlook and humane principles... In these discussions, Scooter showed an admirable concern for preserving civil liberties." That's the classic conservative move (George Will made it last week in a highly defensive column defending conservatism): no matter what bad things conservatives might do, the only fair way to judge them is the "philosophy" they claim to clutch to their heart.

What's missing from every single one - every one: a single forthright statement about the magnitude of the offense for which he'd already been convicted.

Oh, another thing: as Joseph Wilson has noted, not a single administration official has ever so much as offered an apology to his wife for effectively ruining her 20 year career...not to mention having literally put her life and the lives of her loved ones in jeopardy.