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Where's arrogance in the criminal code? Monday, Nov 7, 2005 By John Brummett Let's discuss the Scooter Libby indictment to try to get closer to its significance and essence. Regrettably, though, some of you must be disqualified from active participation. That's because you have demonstrated an inability to consider the indictment by itself. You seem able to consider it only in ways that serve your broader agenda. We announce these disqualifications: -Any persons rooting ahead of time for an indictment, since they bore preconceived sentiment based on philosophy and partisanship. That is to say that their hearts longed for an indictment to advance their sincere and profound belief that this administration willfully lied to take us into a misbegotten war, maybe for something so sinister as to enrich Dick Cheney's Halliburton. -The inverse, meaning those rooting ahead of time against the indictment because it would harm the greater and nobler causes of war and conservatism. -Anyone arguing either side who invokes Bill Clinton's impeachment - as in, "Well, they did the same thing to Clinton." At some point, we must break this childish cycle by which each party deems turnabout fair play. I will offer a scenario deemed plausible based on real and circumstantial evidence and informed speculation. This White House is dominated by Cheney and his staff, and these people tend to be so-called neocons, meaning new kinds of conservatives. They believe America's long-term security in the changing world depends on using our force to get a democratic foothold in the Middle East to begin to stabilize that part of the world. They believed Iraq presented the ideal opportunity, since Saddam Hussein was a verifiably evil despot and, by the way, a secularist out of step with, and not defended by, the Islamic theocrats of the region. They justified the war not by this abstract logic that mattered most to them, since they didn't trust the people to get it, but by weapons of mass destruction. They said that Saddam formerly had them, that he had in fact used them on his own citizens and that he surely was hiding them still from U.N. inspectors. When it came out that no one could find any such weapons, the neocons' primary stated justification began to crumble. The severest blow was an op-ed piece by a Joseph Wilson, who had been sent by the CIA to investigate a claim the White House had advanced as ominous, solemn fact - that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger. Wilson wrote he found no such evidence. Cheney and his people reacted in the way politicians often react to credible, harmful criticism. First they argued. Hussein had once used such weapons, and would surely seek and use them again if unchecked, they charged. Then, fatefully, they tried to diminish the source. Cheney told Libby that Wilson only got the assignment because his wife worked for the CIA. Libby told this to reporters. When it came out that Wilson's wife had at times been a covert CIA operative - which Cheney and Libby perhaps should have known, but presumably didn't - and that a special counsel would investigate whether espionage law had been violated in her public identification, it behooved Libby to fall on his sword to protect the cause and Cheney. The timing also was important because all this was breaking shortly before an election that Bush could well lose, thus setting back indefinitely the neocon agenda. Thus the White House's purposes weren't exactly sinister. The neocons didn't seek war merely for the heck of it, or profit. They didn't seek to punish a covert CIA operative. Their purposes were to advance an honestly held philosophy and, when it became necessary, protect the boss, meaning the vice president, from political trouble. The general wrong - beyond Libby's lying to a grand jury - was what J. William Fulbright once called the arrogance of power. The readiest antidote for that is found in the next election. It's not as easy to find in the criminal code. ------- John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com. |
