The Libby Trial

I don't exactly understand what the Libby trial is about. A long time ago, somewhere in 2005, I heard Patrick Fitzgerald explain it, at a press conference, and I had a hard time following it then, and he was taking pains to make clear why it was so important and how unambiguous the evidence was against Libby, which seems unlikely, since if it is difficult to follow the indictment even when it is explicated in meticulous detail, everything about the case is likely to be vague and ambiguous. To use legal terms. I know, from watching Fitzgerald, that the Libby indictment has something to do with Libby having originated some of the disclosures about Valerie Plame, rather than being on the receiving end of such disclosures from reporters, and that this misrepresentation on Scooter's part obstructed the investigation. Threw sand in the umpire's eyes, to use Fitz's metaphor.

It doesn't matter. At least Scooter Libby is going to trial, and at least that Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney will have to testify in court. That's more than a little something. I would pay a lot of money, more money than I would pay to hear Bruce Springsteen or Evgeny Kissin (just to name 2 hot tickets) to sit in the court room and watch Patrick Fitzgerald cross-examine Dick Cheney. Dick, as we all know, makes his way in the world by feigning a kind of imperious mastery over all matters great and small. He sits, the lump of his head joined to the larger lump of his torso by no discernible neck region, and growls out of the side of his mouth in an unflappable monotone meant to intimidate anyone within earshot. I think it's all an act, and he doesn't feel nearly as invulnerable or omniscient as he leads us to believe. For one thing, no one can match his record for being wrong about everything he talks about, particularly when it comes to the Iraq War. He's in a class by himself. He sets the standard by which all other stupidity must be measured. From "no doubt about Saddam's nuclear program" to "welcomed as liberators" to "the death throes of the insurgency," Cheney has confounded the laws of probability with his uncanny knack for being wrong. He is wrong, and then after a brief passage of time, he is wrong again. In Column 1, we can list Cheney's prognostications/analyses, and then in Column 2, we can assess accuracy. The entries in Column 2 are all the same: Wrong. Flipping a coin would yield much better results. Cheney can't admit being wrong, or course, for the simple reason that his insecurities won't let him, and his insecurities derive from his inner recognition of an evident truth: Cheney isn't all that bright.

Thus, the showdown. Fitzgerald is all that bright. He's just timid, in my opinion, in ways that Eliot Spitzer, for example, isn't. Fitgerald appears to need absolute assurance that he can prove every last element of every crime he indicts, beyond all reasonable doubt, before he will even commit himself to seeking the grand jury's affirmation. Thus, the unbelievable number of times he called key witnesses to the grand jury. Over and over, covering the same ground. Fitzgerald, to say the least, could not make it in private practice. His costs of representation, in any but the largest cases, would always exceed the amount in controversy. He is, therefore, ideal as a public sector advocate, since titanic waste is standard operating procedure.

He avoided seeking a substantive indictment on the Identities Act (disclosing an undercover operative's name) for very technical reasons which he never ventured to explain. There has even been speculation that Fitzgerald was chosen by figures in the Administration because of these hyper-cautious, Old-Lady-Like tendencies.

It may not help Cheney, however. Having come this far, I imagine that Fitzgerald is absolutely determined to win, and he has winnowed the issues down to this tiny focal point on which he can concentrate all of his energy. Nevertheless, the surrounding "context," the ways in which the Bush Administration sought to control the mounting public outcry when their lies and obfuscations about WMD in Iraq stood nakedly in the light of day, is very much in play; and if Cheney is in his way, I think he will throw caution to the wind. The momentum of a trial, the tension between prosecution and defense, ratchets steadily up as the trial progresses, so that counsel begin to lose all sense of that other "context," the "externalities" of the trial, such as whether Fitzgerald is being impolitic in pursuing Cheney doggedly till he forces him into the open.

And flushed from behind that patina of insufferable superiority (like a domesticated quail, or a lawyer hunting buddy), Cheney will have a lot to answer for. It will become apparent that Cheney was the one who fingered Joseph Wilson (that famous circled newspaper item). Cheney will become Scooter's motivation to lie: to protect his boss from the revelation that the Wilson "hit" originated in the VP's office. It is possible that Cheney will dissolve on the stand, will perjure himself, will contradict earlier testimony and statements made to Fitzgerald's investigators.

Oh yeah. It's all there. Let the games begin. Cross-examination is different from a press conference. A prosecutor is experienced in the art of boxing in his quarry. He's not only permitted follow-ups; he's got a judge who will see to it that Cheney, at long last, answers a question directly and honestly. And who knows where that might lead?