Libby labeled: Indictment of top official sends shockwave
Presumption of innocence notwithstanding, the indictment and quick resignation of the Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff in the CIA leak scandal gives a serious black eye to a Bush administration already reeling from setbacks and criticism in other areas. It’s not every day that such a high-ranking official, in this case I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, finds himself on the troublesome end of a grand jury indictment charging obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. But that’s where special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, appointed by Bush’s own acting Attorney General James B. Comey in December 2003, has thus far steered his investigative ship.
Fitzgerald’s main purpose, of course, is tracking down the alleged unauthorized disclosure of the indentity of CIA operative Valerie Plum, a case that’s also involved the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and opened a side debate on protecting the sanctity of reporters’ sources. But what’s clear from Libby’s indictment – and the low-hanging cloud of potential indictment hanging over Bush advisor Karl Rove – is that a Watergate-style cover-up is currently on the prosecutorial front burner.
Unlike the unrelated recent indictment of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in Texas, a Republican who’s attributing his problems to a revengeful Democrat prosecutor, accusations of political partisanship won’t easily stick to Fitzgerald. He was appointed to his job by a Bush cabinet member, not a Democratic Party bigwig like Rep. Nancy Pelosi or Sen. Harry Reid.
That won’t stop some GOP loyalists from trying to spin the issue into some minor indiscretion, marginalizing Libby as a fall guy or trying to change the topic entirely. However, it seems their Houdini-like ability to pull off those trick is losing its intelllectual sleight-of-hand. The public, conscientious politicians in both parties and yes, the majority of the press, instinctively know that it’s wrong to “out” a CIA agent as a means to punish her diplomat husband for going against the grain of the Bush administration’s flimsy justification for starting a war in Iraq.
This is a hard blow to a White House already living in the shadow of a war going badly, a botched Supreme Court nomination, a slow and unsympathetic response to Hurrican Katrina victims, and record oil company profits at a time when gasoline prices rose to unprecedented levels.
Anticipation of Fitzgerald’s next move is sure to cause some sleepless nights in Washington, D.C. Our most fervent hope is that Fitzgerald eventually gets to indicting the source or sources of the Valerie Plame leak. If and when that occurs, history books can add another chapter behind Watergate as an example of corruption and abuse of power at the federal level.