Dean's World

It's lunch time now and most folks have filed out of the courtroom for lunch. I'm down in the press room writing this post for about twenty minutes.

Libby's attorney Ted Wells got up and began the defense's closing arguments.

Thus far, here's what he's said:

The prosecution said that we would talk about a conspiracy inside NBC and the White House to a) Get Bush, and b) make Libby a scapegoat. Neither was the case, however, there was some shared thinking inside the WH that protecting Rove should come first.
Libby is not being charged for his conversations with government officials before the leak came out. He likely had known about Valerie Plame, however, since he was busy working 14 hour days he had forgotten it.
He relearned about Valerie Plame after talking to Tim Russert in a conversation that Russert now says did not take place.
Russert has memory problems as demonstrated by his forgetting of a personal incident in which he called up a newspaper and yelled at a writer there for saying something critical of him.
Russert isn't necessarily a liar, he may just not remember the facts in this case.
Karl Rove lied to the White House when he told it that he had not spoken with Robert Novak about his now-infamous column. Libby never lied or disclosed any knowledge he had about Plame to reporters.

(link)

Sean Golden (mail) (www):

This defense has the unexpected juicy benefit of slamming Karl Rove. It's just crazy enough to work!

2.20.2007 1:58pm

Dean Esmay:

My guess is that Libby will be convicted of two of the remaining 4 charges against him, mostly because he was in CYA mode over a stupid trifle, and the jury will feel like they just have to convict him of something since he must have done something wrong to get all this attention over something so trivial.

Assuming it's not overturned on appeal, he can expect a pardon from the President in late 2008... because, after all, he didn't really do anything unethical except panic and fly into CYA mode.

2.20.2007 6:36pm

Martin L. Shoemaker (www):

...he must have done something wrong to get all this attention over something so trivial.

What a mockery of reasonable doubt that would be. Someone -- Heinlein? -- once quoted an old artillery timing chant: "He's got to be guilty, or he wouldn't be here!" We're supposed to be better than that.

2.20.2007 8:27pm

mariner:

I'd hate to have to put my life or freedom in the hands of "a jury of my peers".

Of course, I'd hate even worse to put it in the hands of a single robed government employee.

2.20.2007 9:39pm

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Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.

Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.