As the Curtain Falls, the Villains Exit Stage Right

With the breaking news of Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence still rolling hot off the presses, the curtain has finally fallen on yet another depressing piece of Bush Administration kabuki theater. All that is left in this sordid spectacle is the predictable reaction of the audience: the outraged jeers and hisses from the left, the thunderous applause from the right, and the final, painfully evenhanded judgment from the pompous theater critics in the media.

The stage was set from the beginning, when the Administration's fatal character flaw set in motion a chain of events with predictably tragic consequences. Joe Wilson chose to try to set things right in Denmark insofar as he could, and stab through the veil of Administration secrecy and lies, only to be rewarded for his effort by treasonous blades and men poisoned by lust for power. An Administration that came to power through royal coup and was obsessed with invading Iraq at all costs has reaped the inevitable electoral consequences for their transgressions, but the career suicides under a river of evil and the poisoned bodies of betrayed heroes are already too heavy to bear and too numerous to undo. The law, embodied by Fitzgerald, did what it could to hold the guilty accountable--but no more. And in the final act came the inevitable and totally forseeable denouement: illegal obstruction of justice was commuted through the twisted power of legal obstruction of justice, as those who first conspired to pour toxic lies into the ears of the American People walk as free men.

Unfortunately, that will no doubt be the final scene in this foul drama: the villains will exit stage Right, still standing and taking bows to the clamorous approbation of their fans, as the majority of the audience looks on in shocked horror and disbelief, and a vocal segment of the audience makes its displeasure clear. And the critics will turn in their remarks on the whole business with typically dispassionate false objectivity.

The reason this play will end thus is that we have no Hamlets and no Horatios willing to take the risk of committing career suicide and taking arms against this sea of evil. Our Democratic princes and princesses see themselves in quick line for the succession to the throne of our criminally wanton King George; just a few more years, they tell themselves, and this nightmare will be over and all will be well in Denmark again. In the meantime, they would prefer to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous deeds than engage in the sort of swordplay that might endanger their precious political futures. And all the while, the people perish under the weight of abject lawlessness and blatant treason.

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It does not have to be thus, of course. A stark choice lies before each and every one of us--a choice by which we will be forever judged in the annals of history.

We can choose to ride out the Bush presidency, in the naive hope that the next Democratic nominee will be our Fortinbras to wipe away the darkness and make of these evil transgressions mere unpleasant memories of a bygone era, even as Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius and Laertes all walk free to wreak their havoc in other capacities.

Or we can choose to be heroes and rush headlong where angels fear to tread in defense of our honor, the Constitution, and the principles of freedom and justice to which our country is so famously and supposedly committed.

But please, elected Democrats, spare us your feigned outrage. All the soliloquies and well-publicized indignation in the world; all the legalistic and parliamentary motions of investigations, senses of the Senate, and no-confidence votes in the world accomplish exactly nothing without decisive action in their wake. Even little children know the difference between a hero and a bureaucrat.

One day those little children--the kids and grandkids of those of us young enough never to have lived in the decade of Vietnam--will ask us what we did, and what our parents did.

Long after the 2008 election is but a distant memory written about only in history textbooks, generations to come will ask not what strategies we used to achieve electoral victory in some House or Senate race somewhere, but rather what we did to stop these villains and hold them accountable for their crimes.

As a child of the Reagan years, I neither know nor care what was done in any given Senate race to win Democratic victory in the wake of Watergate. I neither know nor care how the House leadership chose to play the issue of Vietnam to achieve maximum electoral benefit.

I care instead about Bernstein. I care about Woodward. I care about Frank Church. Because those men were heroes unafraid to cross swords with the most powerful man on earth. Those are the men history will remember. Those are the men who defended America when it needed defending most.

At some point we must, as a Party and as a Movement, decide what is more important: simply winning elections, or being the extraordinary heroes that are required in these extraordinary times?

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The evidence is already patently clear enough to impeach Gonzales and Dick Cheney. The outrageous lies and clear obstructions of justice are bright as day. Perhaps Bush still has far too much plausible deniability--and if so, so be it.

The only question that remains is for the Democratic leadership: will you be the heroes your nation requires in its hour of need, or will you instead sell your birthright for the mess of pottage that is the next election cycle? Will you truly allow these villains to walk off stage without feeling the blade of their own karma?

The choice is stark, and your actions will be remembered for generations to come.

The Ashcroft/Gonzales Lesson: Cronies are Always Worse than Ideologues

It seems like just yesterday that John Ashcroft was every progressive's worst nightmare: a Christian conservative fundamentalist, authoritarian, crackpot Attorney General with a megalomania complex, no respect for taxpayer dollars, and a moonlighting interest in jingoistic singing and songwriting so bad that it would make William Hung blush.

How naive we were. As bad as John Ashcroft was, there can be no doubt that Ashcroft's justice department was a veritable bastion of honesty and upright government compared to the travesty that is the department under the tenure of Mr. "soon-to-be-spending-the-rest-of-his-short-assed-term-under-agonizing-impeachment-threats-or-resignation-demands" Gonzales here.

Indeed, the enormity of Gonzales' transgressions against basic human decency and the principle of impartiality that is the foundation of our entire legal system is so overwhelming that mere words cannot do it justice. Such was the chutzpah of this weasel of a man in so obviously subverting the entire purpose of having a "justice department" that the entire politicization scheme is is becoming unraveled at a record pace. Hell, it's so blatantly transparent that they can't even keep telling the same lie from one day to the next.

What's frightening about all this, however, is that we can surmise fairly confidently that this would never have happened under Ashcroft's tenure. As evil and sick as Ashcroft's ideology may have been and continues to be, one gets the sense that he actually cares about America. That he would not have tolerated or condoned even half of this ugly business. Even Ashcroft's biggest detractors would, I am sure, admit that the man undoubtedly cares about the concept of "justice"; that he believes in the ideal of a just America; and that, in his own fucked up way, he actually has the best interests of America rather than just the Republican Party at heart. One gets the impression that, while Ashcroft may have been doing the wrong things and pursuing the wrong policies, that he at least tried to be competent, and was at least vaguely interested in the notion of what we might broadly call "justice"--even if he figured it didn't apply to terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.

But Gonzales? The creep was Bush's personal lawyer. And so far as anyone can tell, he really hasn't been interested in anything more than doing his client's/boss' bidding--just like Bush's other personal lawyer, the appalling Harriet Miers, who has also been implicated in the scandal. And do we really need to mention Karl "Turdblossom" Rove? These people aren't civil servants; they're just cronies of no value to anyone but the petty masters they serve.

You see, ideology is really beside the point here. Reasonable people can disagree about matters of public policy. Reasonable people can disagree about the balance between freedom and national security. Reasonable people can even disagree about whether Guantanamo detainees are actual prisoners or war, or deserve their own classification. Those disagreements can be strong; they can be virulent; they can be passionate--but they all rely on the common assumption that the arguing parties care even in theory about the health of the United States of America.

But these people--people like Rove, like Gonzales and like Miers--these people do not give a damn about justice or even about what's good for America. They really don't. And they never have. So when orders come straight from the top to turn the entire justice department into one big baseball bat with which to whack the Democratic Party, they just go right along with it with an obedience that would make even the most hardheaded right-wing nutcase cringe with shame. Because they're cronies who don't give a shit about their country, electing to serve their momentary patrons above all else. And what's most insidious about them is how much less dangerous they seem at first glance than the ideologues we tend to fear. They are, if anything, more dangerous to America and all it represents.

And this isn't just about Gonzales: it's about every crony that Bush and Cheney have nominated to positions of influence and power.

It goes for Roberts--an administration lawyer who seems so much more reasonable than does Alito or Luttig--but votes just as unreasonably and is, I imagine, even less likely to "grow" in office than is Alito.

It goes for Miers, a Sith of a woman whom Dubya attempted to install on the court with a wink and a nod to his base. Fortunately for the rest of us, his base was too stupid to realize what it would mean for Bush to appoint a crony to the Supreme Court--but Alito will be far more independent and likelier to vote our way than ever Miers would have been. Hell, I'd take the likes of Michael Luttig of Harriet Miers any day.

It goes for Brownie--a seemingly innocuous man who, when word came from Karl Rove to screw over a female Democratic governor by letting an entire American city drown, obeyed his masters like a sheepdog and said nothing--until that is, they sold him down the river as the fall guy. As evil as an ideologue like Grover Norquist is, I can almost guarantee you that he wouldn't have failed so spectacularly in allowing New Orleans to drown--no matter how badly he may wish to drown the federal government.

It goes for "Scooter" Libby--a seemingly serene and gentle man who is so indebted to his PNAC patrons that he is apparently willing to go to prison to protect them by outing a nuclear proliferations covert agent and then lying about it. I'd frankly rather deal with Ollie North--at least I know where he's coming from, and he can't stab me in the back.

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The upshot is this: when evil bastards give you a choice between accepting the nomination of a scary-looking ideologue, or a moderate-looking crony, the choice is clear: pick the ideologue every time. Because quite frankly, there's nothing scarier than cronies like Gonzales and Brownie making you pine for the days of ideologues like Ashcroft.

Impeach the cronies. Then (if politically feasible) impeach their bosses. Keep a close watch on the ideologues. And then remove them ALL from power ASAP. But for the love of our country, start with the cronies--because at least the ideologues care bad enough about something besides their masters to try to do the jobs they were appointed for.

Cross-posted at MLW and at There Is No Blog

Scooter's Fate Ties GOP to NeoCons' Sinking Ship

In the wake of Scooter Libby's conviction for lying and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case, most of the focus has been correctly centered on 1) whether the prospect of heavy prison time will encourage Libby to spill the beans on Cheney; 2) whether Bush will attempt to cut short any such speculation, or the threat of a lengthy sentence, by pardoning Libby; and 3) how much damage the scandal has caused and will cause to the GOP brand especially regarding public trust in the GOP with respect to national security issues.

I argue, however, that there is an even bigger underlying story here that is being severely underestimated--and it has to do with Libby's reasons for accepting the role of fall guy in the first place.

Libby, you see, is in a singular position of power over the Republican Party right now. He knows good and well that the information he has about the shenanigans that took place in the White House and the Office of the Vice-President could very well bring down the entire Administration if they were to become public. If Libby spilled the beans about it, it would destroy the GOP for the next half-decade at least. True, the GOP would attempt to vilify him as a known liar trying to save his own behind--but the support the GOP has given Libby until now (with everyone from Krauthammer to DeLay encouraging Libby's pardon) would make that difficult.

Where this gets interesting, though, is in figuring out Libby's motivations for accepting the role of fall guy in the first place. It takes more than a simple sense of duty or loyalty to one's employers to accept the possibility of spending the rest of one's life in federal prison: it takes a commitment to ideology, and a depth of feeling about the issue that can only derive from the deepest convictions. And while cynics might argue that he simply expects to be saved by a presidential pardon, I wouldn't trust Bush to do anything that my life and liberty depended on.

To understand Libby's possible motivations, we have to look at his record of public service. For that, a concise summary can be found at Wikipedia's entry on Scooter Libby:

After working as a lawyer in Philadelphia, Libby "accepted a job offer from his old Yale political science professor, Paul Wolfowitz, and went to work for Wolfowitz at the State Department, from 1981 to 1985," as a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff. From 1982 to 1985, according to his official U.S. State Department biography, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Although in 1985 "he left the government to enter private legal practice.... By 1989 he was working again for Wolfowitz, this time at the Pentagon, as principal deputy under-secretary of defense for strategy and resources....For his government service [in 1993] Libby was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award and the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award. He also received the Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service [1985]." During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was also confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy. According to Curtiss, "When the Democrats took over in 1992, Libby crossed the Potomac to serve as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China." Libby co-authored the draft of the "Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994-99 fiscal years" (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

In 1995, as recounted by Curtiss, Libby "became managing partner at the Washington office of the Dechert, Price and Rhoads law firm, where he worked until 2001, when Vice President Cheney named him chief of staff and national security adviser."

According to Stephen Smith, in the previously-cited CBS News report of October 28, 2005, "Along with Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Wolfowitz, Libby became part of a network of neo-conservatives who many know as the 'Vulcans' – Mr. Bush's core national security team." In 1997 Libby became a founding member of the Project for the New American Century, and, while he was still a partner at Dechert Price, and Rhoads, he joined Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and others in writing its 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".


After becoming Vice President Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. His "constant presence behind the scenes in the Bush administration" reportedly also led to his nickname "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney": "'He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president,' said Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term....Speaking before the indictments, she described Libby as a deep thinker and problem-solver who gives 'discreet advice.'

Libby was also active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001-2003). emphasis added

Let's summarize this for a second: Libby came into public service through Paul Wolfowitz; went to the private sector before coming back into the government fold again for Wolfowitz; served in the defense department for George H. W. Bush during the first Gulf War; dropped out of Republican politics during the entirety of the Clinton years, serving as a legal advisor encouraging military buildup against China; and then comes back on board to serve under Cheney. He is a founding Vulcan and PNAC signatory.

This is not the picture of a Republican operative; this is the picture of a die-hard NeoCon aggressive foreign policy operative. His biography paints a picture of a man who only gets interested in public policy when it comes in the service of using America's military in an aggressive stance, either to annoy China or to steal oil resources in the Middle East. He is deep in with Wolfowitz; with Doug Feith; with Dick Cheney; and with the rest of his PNAC brethren. He doesn't, on the other hand, appear to care a great deal about tax cuts, abortion, or any other major piece of the Republican platform that doesn't involve dropping bombs on somebody somewhere.

And this is the man who holds the entire Republican Party by the balls.

What makes this singularly interesting is that with public approval of the Occupation of Iraq reaching new record lows almost every week, and with the PNAC agenda having been shown to be as pragmatically awful as it is morally repugnant, the only way for the Republican Party to salvage its image is by throwing the NeoCons overboard and trying to get back to some semblance of an actually conservative foreign policy. There are persistent rumors of a rift between Bush and Cheney himself, and prominent Republicans like Chuck Hagel are openly making their displeasure known with NeoCon foreign policy. And you can bet that the GOP will, toward the end of Bush's term, stick the knife in his back and declare him a liberal Wilsonian at heart, and not a "real" conservative--in fact, that process has already begun.

Scooter Libby, however, throws a monkey wrench into these workings. He is the walking, ticking time bomb that can destroy the GOP--and he knows it. And if I read Libby's character and history correctly, I don't think he'll submit to spending much of the rest of his life in prison to protect a party that has thrown him, his friends, and the ideology he has spent his life and career pursuing overboard.

On the contrary--Scooter's one single biggest bargaining chip is the threat that if the GOP doesn't toe the NeoCon line (or if Bush doesn't pardon him--and Bush hasn't made even a hint that he'll do that), he'll sing like a canary.

If I were a Republican operative, I would be more than a little bit nervous about my party's predicament right now...