Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury and obstructing Justice during the Valerie Plame investigation last March. Before he was sentenced on Tuesday he spoke publicly for the first time since he was indicted in 2005. What he said:
“It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider, along with the jury verdict, my whole life.”
What he didn’t say: “I’m sorry.” That’s something a man might want to consider when facing up to three years in a federal prison.
He does have a lot of friends in high places though, and they all wrote letters to the court asking for leniency.
Rumsfeld asked the judge to consider “his outstanding record, his many contributions to our country and his value as a citizen.”
Kissinger said, “he pursued his objectives with integrity and a sense of responsibility.”
Bolton said he was a man of “substance” who worked on complex issues.
Wolfowitz said his motivation was in the “noblest spirit of selfless service.”
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton didn’t buy it. He said “Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course.” And he said that Libby’s lies outweighed his numerous years of public service and proceeded to sentence him to two and a half years in prison.
Libby wasn’t that well known until Bush and Cheney took office, and even then he wasn’t that well known until the Plame investigation got rolling. Maybe he was a “valuable citizen,” a man of “substance” and “integrity,” and was “noble” and “selfless” in his service for our country.
He’s not that man now. If he really was the man described by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kissinger, and Bolton, he would have refused to cover for his boss’s vindictive plan to blow the cover of his political enemy’s CIA wife. He would have chosen to resign rather than compromise his honor and integrity.
When you get right down to it, the only honorable thing that anyone serving in this administration can do is resign.
0 Responses to “An Honorable Man?”