Today’s Must ReadHe was scapegoated! The powers that be were protecting the president’s right hand!
David Johnston and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times take a look at the arguments coming from Scooter Libby’s lawyers (that Libby was hung out to dry to protect Karl Rove), and, well, color them unconvinced.
First, despite the fact that reporters (and Patrick Fitzgerald) have been swarming all over Plamegate for almost four years, this supposed White House cabal against Libby escaped detection. And they still can’t find anyone to support that idea. In fact, Libby and Rove seemed to have worked pretty closely together. “They didn’t show any ankle — it was always a team effort,” as Lawrence Wilkerson, a former State Department official, puts it.
Second, it’s not clear that Libby was really hung out to dry. The only evidence seems to be that it took White House spokesman Scott McClellan a week longer in September of 2003 to lie to the press about whether Libby had been involved in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity than it did for him to deny Rove’s involvement.
And third, “[e]ven if the assertion is shown to be true, it is not clear how it would help refute the charges that Mr. Libby had perjured himself.”
Do Libby’s lawyers have anything more than smoke up their sleeves?