(I was going to title this "Libby Leak Looking Likely," but I restrained myself.)
Derek Jackson has an intereting column in today's Boston Globe which suggests that Cheney, through Libby, is becoming the focus of the leak investigation:
THE NEWS that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was the second possible source in the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent to Time magazine elevates the scandal to a whole new level. It is bad enough for Karl Rove to be accused of being a leaker, since he is President Bush's chief political strategist.
But if Time's story holds, I. Lewis Libby's involvement represents an even more insidious abuse of power.
See below for why Libby may be worse than Rove.
We've all been indulging in a bit of shadenfreude over Karl Rove getting the same treatment he's given others. And it is proper to express serious concern that the Deputy Chief of Staff leaked classified information for political purposes. That's bad enough, but Rove is in many ways a purely political operative; that is, his main interest is more in getting and keeping power for the GOP by whatever means necessary. As I see it, his concern about what the GOP does with that power is governed primarily by whether it keeps the GOP in power.
Now, that's bad enough. But unlike Rove, Libby is one of the original neo-cons who put together the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). (See this bio note.) The PNAC manifesto is apparently no longer available on the web, but, as has been reported many times, it calls for building a new American empire, starting with Iraq. (See here for example.) Keep that in mind when reading what Jackson has to say about him:
Libby was in the thick of whipping up fear over the thinnest of evidence. The level to which Libby and Cheney stooped to get their war was highlighted by the momentous presentation of Saddam's ``threat'' before the United Nations Security Council by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell gave a presentation six weeks before the war where he said, ``every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions.'' Those assertions resulted in grudging acceptance of the war from many Democrats.
Libby was the one pushing Powell to connect Saddam to Al Qaeda, even though the facts showed otherwise:
A US News and World Report story in the summer of 2003 quoted a senior administration official as saying Libby's presentation ``was over the top and ran the gamut from Al Qaeda to human rights to weapons of mass destruction. They were unsubstantiated assertions, in my view.''
Powell, according to both US News and Vanity Fair, was so irritated by Libby's hodgepodge of unsubstantiated facts that he threw documents into the air and said, ``I'm not reading this. This is bull ...''
Although Jackson starts off by connecting Libby to the Plame leak, he spends more time on Libby's berating Powell. Jackson's point is that Libby wanted the war with Iraq at any cost. But it led me to some other speculations as well:
- Libby is equally determined to let neither facts nor people get in his way.
- Libby is now revealed (by Cooper) as a source for the Plame leak.
- Libby does not like Powell.
I suggest that the original source for the Plame leak may be Libby, who, unlike Rove at the time, had a job-related reason to be aware of Plame's status. Libby did this to kill at least two birds with one stone:
- Punish Wilson for stepping out of line.
- Warn Powell that if he stepped out of line, he would get the same treatment.
This may be one reason why Powell has kept his silence on the matter. For someone who has kept his cool under real fire, he's showing a remarkable lack of spine in the face of political fire. We don't know what Powell told Fitzgerald, but we can hope his spine came back to him. Or at least that being under oath gave him some courage.
And of course, Libby is tied to Cheney, another PNAC'er. Which may explain the rumors that Fitzgerald is on to something bigger than Rove.