Libby: The Fallen Soldier

I've already posted before on the lengths that the slavering right wingers are going to, in order to ensure that the criminal "Scooter" Libby does not have to serve time, and the way they are shamelessly calling for Bush to give Libby a pardon. I suppose that with Paris Hilton already back in the slammer it appears as if one more celebrity jailing just might tear the very fabric of the country.

Bill Kristol has already exhausted the "pardon Libby because it will make the Dems go crazy" argument... but Bush doesn't appear to be buying it. He then launched into the "pardon Libby or no right wing loon will ever support you again" argument, but still nothing seems to be working.

But now..... The Cavalry! Step forward Fouad Ajami with an argument of such breathtaking obsequience, with a detachment from reality which is so profound that he would win a gold medal if such a thing could ever be turned into a sport, that even Bush must, at least, notice that an argument is being made.

Did I say argument? Nay, for that is to understate this appeal to nobility, courage and war.

First, in an open letter to the President, he sets out what the "Scooter" Libby case was actually about:

This case has been, from the start, about the Iraq war and its legitimacy. Judge Walton came to it late; before him were laid bare the technical and narrowly legalistic matters of it. But you possess a greater knowledge of this case, a keen sense of the man caught up in this storm, and of the great contest and tensions that swirl around the Iraq war.

Now, of course, this case was about the Iraq war. And the lies that preceded it. (And the lies that Libby told to prevent the lies that Bush and others told from coming to light.) So, this might not actually be his best opening line. (Shhhhh! Bush would much rather people forgot what the Libby case was actually about.)

However, Ajami quickly warms to his theme and reminds Bush that he is implicated in all this as well.

To Scooter's detractors, and yours, it was the "sin" of that devoted public servant that he believed in the nobility of this war, that he did not trim his sails, and that he didn't duck when the war lost its luster.

So having painted "Scooter" as a sort of hero-Bush-in-minature, (the kind of guy who lands planes on aircraft carriers whilst wearing a cod fighter pilots costume if you like), he then strikes at Bush's patriotism as the way to secure Libby's pardon.

In "The Soldier's Creed," there is a particularly compelling principle: "I will never leave a fallen comrade." This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors. Across time and space, cultures, each in its own way, have given voice to this most basic of beliefs. They have done it, we know, to give heart to those who embark on a common mission, to give them confidence that they will not be given up under duress.

Then, warming to his theme, he brings out the big guns:

Mr. President, the one defining mark of your own moral outlook is the distinction between friend and foe, a refusal to be lulled into moral and political compromises. Your critics have made much of this and have seen it as self-righteousness and moral absolutism, but this has guided you through the great, divisive issues faced by our country over these last, searing years. Scooter Libby was a soldier in your--our--war in Iraq, he was chief of staff to a vice president who had become a lightning rod to the war's critics. He didn't sit around the councils of power only to make the rounds in Georgetown's salons insinuating that this was not his war all along. He didn't claim this war when it promised an easy victory only to desert it when it stalled in the alleyways of Fallujah and Baghdad and in the twilight world of Arab politics.

Okay, so he's a soldier, Nay - strike that - your soldier, Mr Bush, in your war. And then - a masterstroke - he defines how pardoning Libby is actually to Bush's advantage!

The Schadenfreude of your political detractors over the Libby verdict lays bare the essence of this case: an indictment of the Iraq war itself. The critics of the war shall grant you no reprieve if you let Scooter Libby do prison time. They will see his imprisonment as additional proof that this has been a war of folly from the outset.

Oh, he's good. If you allow Libby to do jail time, it's not that the right wing will hate you, it's that those bloody left wingers will use this as fodder against the glorious war.

He then leaves us with an image of dear little "Scooter", that tireless American hero.

The prosecutor, and the jury and the judge, had before them a case that purported to stand alone, a trial of one man's memory and recollections. But you have before you what they and the rest of us don't--a memory of the passions and the panic, and the certitude, which gave rise to the war. And a sense, I am confident, of the quiet and selfless man who sat in the outer circle when your cabinet deliberated over our country's choices in Iraq, and in those burning grounds of the Arab-Islamic world. Scooter Libby was there for the beginning of that campaign. He can't be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own.

What does one say? It's almost Bush's patriotic duty to pardon this brave little fighter that the nation has abandoned in the alleyways of Fallujah and Baghdad. This "quiet and selfless" man, lying bleeding in the sand, being sneered at by the terrorists and the Liberals.

This "man of great depth" who "knew moral complexity (his remarkably lyrical novel, "The Apprentice," bears witness to an eye for human folly and disappointment)" - and No, I didn't make that up, he really does include a review of Libby's book for the President to peruse - is no less than a wounded soldier.

For the sheer gall of it, the man deserves a bloody Oscar. Bill Kristol would do well to read this article and realise how shoddy his work has been to date with it's cries of "let's enrage the Dems". Ajami takes a lying, sleazy, little criminal toad and turns him into Henry V at Agincourt on Saint Crispin's day.

O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Libby is carrying the scars of Agincourt and now Bush must decide what side he is on. With us or against us Mr President? Ring any bells?

Click title to read the whole thing in all it's deluded glory. But do it quick before the author gets carted off.

Tags: "Scooter" Libby, Iraq war, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, pardon, Bush, William Kristol