plop plop fizz fizz

You know, something is seriously wrong at "All Things Considered".  It appears that whoever makes the decisions about who to have on for commentary is one of the last ten people in America who read NRO's "The Corner" and take it seriously.  Within the last six months, we've heard essays from Dinesh D'Souza, Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, and the lamentably stupid "Mr. Crunchy Con" Rod Dreher, but virtually nothing from liberals.  At least nothing about politics.  We did hear some effete gay guy from the Pacific northwest rhapsodizing lamely about Girl Scout Cookies the other day, and every now and then some hoary old academic will come on to ruminate thoughtfully about their garden or the squirrels that stalk their bird-feeder, but when it comes to Op Ed pieces about the state of affairs in Washington, it's all conservatives all the time.

Take today's piece by Lexington Foundation (an ultra-right-wing think tank) fellow Dan Goure.  In it Goure reminisces morosely about his good friend and former coworker Scooter Libby and says the following bit of utter dreck:

"So what explains the charges for which he has been convicted?  The only explanation that I can come up with is that he thought he was protecting his boss, the Vice President.  Nothing else makes sense of Scooter's apparent kamikaze dive into the Special Prosecutor's investigation.  But even here, I have problems making sense of the story.  Cheney did not leak, so how would lying to anyone protect the Vice President?  In spite of the jury's decision, I have tremendous respect for Scooter.  The verdict against him is a tragedy.  I am tempted to say that his conviction is a miscarriage of justice, but I'm not sure what the truth of the situation is.  That has always been the problem with the Plame Leak investigation and Scooter's trial.  We are no closer to the truth of the matter today."

Uh, with all due respect, Mr. Goure, that's about as big a load of steaming horseshit as I think I've ever heard.  Did Babs Comstock fax this to you an hour before you recorded it?  But let's take down your statements one at a time.  I'm going to go very slowly and speak very loudly and clearly since you are obviously something of a simpleton who either can't or won't bother to inform himself about the basic details of the trial and the charges before you go spewing garbage through your pie-hole on national radio.

 So what explains the charges for which he has been convicted?

Uh, he lied to the grand jury and the FBI.  I know this may be difficult for you to grasp, but the laws in this country are not just for peasants and other people unconnected to the BushCo junta.  

The only explanation that I can come up with is that he thought he was protecting his boss, the Vice President.  Nothing else makes sense of Scooter's apparent kamikaze dive into the Special Prosecutor's investigation.

Well, it was a combination of craven CYA behavior and a misguided urge to keep Shooter out of the line of fire.  Libby is a good drone.  He is a true-believer in the tenets of Republican hierarchy.  He is an expendable pawn on BushCo's chess board.  Someone had to drink the hemlock and it sure wasn't going to be Dead Eye, Chimpy, or Unca Karl, so it fell to Libby to drain that bitter cup.

 But even here, I have problems making sense of the story.  Cheney did not leak, so how would lying to anyone protect the Vice President?

Okay, Mr. Goure, this is where you've been reading too much NRO and Victoria Toensing's meretricious attempts at jury tampering in the ComPost.  Perhaps it was not Cheney himself who spent two hours buttering Judy Miller's toast at the St. Regis, but all of his surrogates were acting on his direct marching orders.  That was made abundantly clear in this trial.  Maybe if you read FDL you'd understand that.

The fact that he was not physically the one actually taking people out to eat and planting stories with them does not make him innocent of the leak.  It makes him what the justice system likes to call An Unindicted Co-Conspirator.  You dig?

In spite of the jury's decision, I have tremendous respect for Scooter.  The verdict against him is a tragedy.

Ah, no, sir, it is not.  It's justice.  Something we've been seeing terrifyingly little of in the last seven years.  You lie to a grand jury and get caught?  You get convicted.  It's very, very simple, really.  Just like you!

I am tempted to say that his conviction is a miscarriage of justice, but I'm not sure what the truth of the situation is.  That has always been the problem with the Plame Leak investigation and Scooter's trial.

Your lack of understanding is no-one's fault but yours, dickhead.  The only "problem" with the investigation and trial has been the media's determination to misreport, misstate, and obfuscate.  That may sound familiar to you, Mr. Goure.  You're soaking in it right now.

We are no closer to the truth of the matter today.

Actually, given the excellent coverage of the trial by this blog, I think we're closer to the truth than ever before.  But this of course is the problem with all you NeoCons.  When something doesn't fit your idea of "the truth", you claim it doesn't make any sense, is "just a theory", or you attempt to discredit the source of the information.  (See "War in Iraq: Intelligence Leading Up To-" for further clarification.)  Do I need to explain to you how this process is exactly oriented to distorting, covering up, and invalidating the facts of any given matter?

William F. Buckley once famously described a conservative as a man standing athwart the flow of history, crying, "Stop!"  Well, the last few years have taught us that a NeoConservative is a man standing athwart the flow of history, saying, "Huh?"

So, tomorrow, when you guys wake up from your post-verdict revelries, I hope you will take a moment to use some of the skills I shared with you last night and write a letter to NPR explaining to them how you feel about this and their other egregious missteps in covering the CIA leak investigation like having Rich Lowry on to declare that since Rove wasn't indicted, it was proof positive that there was no real crime in the outing of Valerie Plame.  I urge you to send hard copies to the ombudsman:

Ombudsman, National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
 

Although if you'd like to hear your letter read on the air, listener emails are featured on Thursday, so go to the top of the page at npr.org and click "Contact Us".  Good luck and godspeed.

Oh, and hooray for guilty verdicts!  Hooray!!  Hooray!! 

Hooray for Jane and Christy and Marcy and Pach and Jeralyn and Looseheadprop!!  HOORAY, HOORAY!! 

Isn't it great to get things right?  We rule.