Cheney's Recent Admissions and the Media

Still waiting for any mention of two recent paramount events, but maybe Blagojevich and Burris is just too damn sexy (Remember while the Washington Post was breaking the beginning of the Watergate scandal, and the media was instead fixated on McGovern's choice of Eagleton for vice president, the man who suffered from depression and had undergone all that shock therapy)?

From Murray Waas's exceptional reporting:

according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, [Cheney] admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.

And, of course, it was Scooter Libby, Cheney's personal minion and Chief of Staff, who was found guilty of obstruction for lying under oath to a grand jury----which prevented the investigation from proceeding any further on the Valerie Plame affair...

Whaaa? Now, why would Libby do that? And that story ain't juicy enough?

With Cheney admitting he directed the affair----In fact, he changed the memo on the very same day that Libby met with, and revealed to NYT pro-war propagandist, Judith Miller, Plame's secret identity so that other reporters might examine her as well (Bob Novak took the bait without shame, of course)!----Mr. Libby, though guilty of lying and obstruction, becomes a minor character in the big picture!

These messy facts are painting both a predictable and coherent picture. And seeing how journalism's role is to explore where the facts lead, and not simply to report intriguing and disparate facts to a bewildered, attention-deficit audience: Where are all the stories on the big goddamn picture in this case! A potential pardon for Libby is every once in a great while discussed on air and in print, and there's nothing on this new development.

One might suspect that some clamoring is warranted, especially since a high-ranking official almost certainly outed a covert CIA agent as retribution for calling into question some of the faulty intelligence the administration was using to go to war. Or is that retribution just Cheney's individual notion of patriotism----like all those patriotic bailout recipients who express their patriotism through keeping offshore tax havens----so it's acceptable? It is their own interpretation of reality (Well, what were they thinking at the time?), and not any set of objective, agreed-upon criteria for what kind of behavior is allowable---- like the law----that truly matters, apparently.

Still, that's a major admission though, almost as big as this one, the other major Cheney story not getting enough attention. And yet, Cheney quite characteristically exploits the same logical absurdities and careful language to defend himself as the rest of this abomination of a regime does:

Cheney denied to the investigators, however, that he had done anything on purpose that would lead to the outing of Plame as a covert CIA operative.

Come on. That's as bad as, and reminds me of, when Doug Cassel, an international human rights scholar, asked John Yoo, author of the Bush administration's torture memos, whether it isn't possible under Yoo's legal interpretation of executive power and privilege for the president to authorize one to crush the testicles of a detainee's child:

Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

So it's the president's reasoning that truly matters when torturing children, not the heinous act itself. Duh? If only Hitler or his subordinates were looking for a good attorney (and a supine press) these days. Actually, at Nuremberg, the "just following orders" excuse was found not valid; and human rights abuses----no matter the thought process of those committing them----was unequivocally unjustified and was even punishable by death.

Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Yoo claims there's "no treaty" or law preventing the president from torturing a detainee. What about these pertinent principles that were adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950?

Principle II : The fact that internal law [Read: Mr. Yoo's interpretation of U.S. Law] does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Try again, Mr. Yoo.

And Mr. Cheney too---since the "Oops, I didn't know leaking Plame's identity as a covert officer would come out once she was named as ambassador Wilson's wife" excuse is not even remotely plausible. However, as Murray reports, there's this for those looking for a "smoking gun":

still...the question as to whether Cheney directed Libby to leak Plame’s identity to the media at Cheney’s direction or Libby did so on his own by acting over zealously in carrying out a broader mandate from Cheney to discredit Wilson and his allegations about manipulation of intelligence information, will almost certainly remain an unresolved one.

So there's the crux----and beautifully machinated by a true professional. Libby will never answer whether he was directed to expose Plame, hence the lying and obstruction of justice. But that doesn't mean Cheney's careful admission should be uniformly ignored by the mainstream media. On the contrary, it should be seen in light of his recent brazen acknowledgement of approving torture. Patterns do say a lot...like this little compilation, which, while still nowhere near comprehensive, nonetheless illustrates some of the----I'm sure purely accidental----Bush administration sins.

But still: You've really got to hand it to the lawless legacy of this administration. While Obama may close Guantanamo, he is, however, posturing like he won't pursue justice for clear and unequivocal violations of the law. Turn the page. Forget it.

Even if Obama's administration decides to individually change course on torture and the illegitimate extension of executive power by not choosing to behave the same way (Congratulations, torture is bad; law is good!), Obama will still be directly responsible for not upholding the constitutional checks necessary to deter future law-breaking. That's right: Do we punish law-breakers in order to deter future crimes or not?

What if I adopt Yoo's argument and come up with really good reasons why I felt I had to rob a convenient store: Like say, I'm one of the 11.1 million unemployed, or even one of the 7.3 million "involuntary part-time workers," bureaucratese for the under-employed, and my economic circumstances----survival----pushed me to it? I'm sure the death-penalty/law and order crowd would agree those circumstances don't successfully challenge the necessity of having to face the full letter of the law. No, I'm sure some conservatives (and liberals too) would remind me of the need for deterrents in our legal system. Otherwise, we'd have chaos. Go figure...