THE MASTER STROKE

Kelso's going to repeat this because it's important. With regard to Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., we always take the side of the individual over the institution and once Libby got jammed up in the system he used to be part of, he became the individual and it would have given us no pleasure seeing him sent to prison. It doesn't matter that he's been a "law-and-order" Republican throughout his life who probably advocated harsher sentencing guidelines than the ones Bush commutation allowed him to avoid. If Kelso were a defense attorney he would have represented Libby in a heartbeat despite despising everything Libby stands for. That said, however, were the entire lives to this date of Libby and Valerie Plame laid bare for all to see, one would presume that "progressives" and "liberals" would find Libby to be something a Washington fixer, albeit one with some fairly retrograde Zionist views. Plame, of course, as a so-called "NOC" would show as a very, very hard person comparable to any of Vladimir Putin's top subalterns in the KGB. Though it would be a stretch, one could make the argument that Libby's involvement with PNAC, AIPAC and Cheney led to the slaughter of untold numbers. Plame, on the other hand, in her capacity as a "NOC" must have had all sorts of direct involvement in many pieces of "wet work." Plame a hero of progressivism? Not on your life. Libby evil incarnate? Not a chance.

The clean hands here seem to be those of the former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who recused himself from the decision to "investigate" the Plame matter, deferring to another of clean hands, prosecutor Fitzgerald. Judge Walton, conservative Republican, did his job and used the wretched sentencing guidelines gride to mete out the punishment the convictions called for. Fair enough. Joe Wilson by virtue of his Tissue Of Lies op-ed piece putting the lie to the WMD-Niger issue seemed to have acted out of principle. For that, we thank him. And inept as he was, the leader of Libby's legal team, Theodore Wells, kind of bollixed up Libby's defense but showed merely ineptitude, hardly malfeasance. 1000s of lawyers could have done a better job but Wells surely didn't do anything evil. He merely got out-played by Fitzgerald. But your chessmasters are...

Karl Rove and Dick Cheney? How amazing are Karl Rove and Dick Cheney? They have been about eight moves ahead of the Democrats since September of 2000, and the Libby commutation was just another example. Look what happened, by getting Bush to commute Libby's prison sentence allowed Libby not to have to testify against Rove, Cheney and Abrahamoff, thereby crushing the case. Rove or Cheney or both came up this brilliant commutation idea that no one else even considered which (a) let Libby avoid jail (b) prevented the implication of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Armitage, and various name-brand journalists and (c) turned the table on the whole Democatitic Party, so instead of questioning the rough justice meted out by lack of judicial control and to be sure and the ultra-harsh sentencing guidelines, Democrats -- terrified of seeming weak on war, guns and crime -- have been put into the uncomfortable position of having to become law and order freaks insisting that Libby must go to prison.


So, Rove and Cheney also short-circuited the usual soul-searching and skepticism about the rigid no-parole federal sentencing guidelines that goes on by the likes of Ted Koppel, Tim Russert, David Broder, etc., when a well-known white person is about to go up for awhile. Don't believe? Find a transcript of Nightline in the days following the federal civil-rights convictions of Powell, Wind, Koon and Briseno. Koppel says something like "what is prison for? punishment? sure, separation from society? sure, rehabilitation? sure, but is a number of years of sexual bondage the right punishment for something like auto-theft or drug posesssion, I don't believe so."

So, the ultra-harsh American criminal justice system will stay in place, with the Democratic Party now it's staunchest advocates. The Republicans, of course, will now retreat to the default position of death-penalty for parking violations.

The hypocrisy, of course, given the Republican minority's treatment of Bill Clinton is silly beyond all measure. Kelso watched the Paula Jones deposition many times and it is clear that Clinton had no INTENT TO DECEIVE. His attorney, Bob Bennett, asked specifically of Jones's counsel to provide a list of the incidents that formed the basis of her claim so that President Clinton could respond to each one: "yes, no or sort of." Because it was a politically-motivated perjury trap from the bounce, Jones's attorney wanted no specifics at all out there LEST Clinton answer honestly. Jones's attorney wanted a broad claim and Judge Webber sided with him. The rest is, as we know, is American history.

Kelso did not follow the Libby case as closely and we have no idea whether or not Libby had intent to deceive federal agents. He certainly wasn't under oath when he spoke with them. As to Libby's claim of faulty memory, that's pretty rich because he is known as an attorney with a tremendous memory for detail. On the other hand, as his love letters to Judith Miller and his own published "fiction" have shown, Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., is something of a nut-ball and could easily have "lost" these past couple of years by virtue of lust, drink, drugs, whatever. Maybe, though he was convicted, he wasn't guilty for lack of intent. Who knows? For Kelso the bottom line is that Libby is no devil; Plame is no angel; Rove and Cheney must answer for all of this publicly, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are barbaric and would fit way better in a place like China than in a wealthy, modern, post-industrial democratic republic.

Here's a very hard baseball trivia question. Last year Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins became the 4th American Leaguer to win the MVP having not been selected to the AL All-Star team. Who were the three others? Bonus points for naming the years.

Kelso's Nuts love you.