The Reality-Based Community

It appears that Patrick Fitzgerald got a key detail wrong in his account of Scooter Libby's testimony about his "authorized leak" of NIE information to Judith Miller. Libby did not in fact testify that he represented the claim that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake as a "key finding."

Of course, it was still dishonest of Libby to leak only the portion of the NIE that backed up the Administration's story, and to suppress the rest of that Estimate and the National Intelligence Council document (delivered to the White House before the famous Sixteen Words were included in the State of the Union address in 2003) that debunked the whole story. So it's puzzling that Tom Maguire thinks Libby didn't lie. And of course there's no evidence whatever for lying, as opposed to honest mistake, in Fitzgerald's promptly-corrected submission to the court.

But don't feel bad, Tom. It was a nice try, and no doubt lots of folks won't bother to check the facts and will believe you. The same folks will probably be taken in by your argument from Fitzgerald's silence. Remember, Fitzgerald is a prosecutor, not a blogger. If he wants to charge Cheney with something, he can. But he's not entitled to put facts unfavorable to Cheney on the record just for laughs. So his failure to say something rude about Cheney (or Bush) allows no inference whatever about whether he has evidence that he could say so truthfully.

Posted at 05:00 PM | TrackBack (0) | |
Thread: Valerie Plame