Lou Dobbs Tonight guest claimed Libby "had nothing to do with" leaking Plame's identity
On the July 3 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, while discussing President Bush's commutation of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence, conservative radio host Steve Malzberg told guest host Kitty Pilgrim that Bush "did the right thing" in commuting Libby's sentence, adding that Libby "had nothing do with" leaking the identity of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. However, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Libby reportedly disclosed Plame's CIA employment to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller before Plame's employment was publicly revealed by syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak in a July 14, 2003, column.
In response to Pilgrim's assertion that "72 percent [of the American public] say that President Bush should not pardon Scooter Libby," Malzberg claimed that "the reason the polls show that is because this whole case has been misrepresented," again asserting that "[t]hey think Scooter Libby leaked the name of a covert CIA agent, which was not even leaked." Malzberg's comments were not challenged by the other guests during the segment, radio hosts Warren Ballentine, Charles Goyette, and Roland Martin, who is also a CNN contributor.
As Media Matters has noted, although Libby did not reveal Plame's identity to Novak, prosecutors alleged that Libby did discuss Plame's CIA employment with Miller on three occasions prior to the publication of Novak's column. The indictment filed against Libby by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on October 28, 2005, asserted that Libby mentioned Plame's CIA employment to Miller on June 23, 2003, July 8, 2003, and July 12, 2003. Further, as Media Matters also noted, journalist Murray Waas explained in his book The United States v. I. Lewis Libby (Union Square Press, June 2007) that Miller testified on January 30 that Libby had disclosed Plame's CIA employment to her at a July 8, 2003, breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., well before Novak publicly revealed it in his column.
Malzberg also suggested that it was significant that Plame's name "was not even leaked." As Media Matters has noted, whether leakers identified Plame by her name -- "Valerie Plame" or "Valerie Wilson" -- or as "Wilson's wife" is irrelevant as a practical matter, because a quick Google search for former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV at the time would have produced Plame's name. Hence, it is of little significance whether Libby or anyone else disclosed Plame's name, as opposed to her identity as a CIA employee, to a reporter.
From the July 3 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:
PILGRIM: Joining me now, four of the country's top radio-show hosts. So, here in New York, we have Steve Malzberg of WOR in New York, Roland Martin of WVON in Chicago. And Roland is also a CNN contributor. And from Raleigh, North Carolina, we have Warren Ballentine of Syndication One. And from Phoenix, Charles Goyette of KFNX. And welcome to you all.
MALZBERG: Thank you, Kitty.
GOYETTE: Hi, Kitty.
PILGRIM: Hello. We have to start with the Scooter Libby news, which was a very big jolt this week. Let's start with Steve. President Bush today saying he wouldn't even rule out a full pardon. This is like this rolling decision. What do you think about the way it's been rolled out?
MALZBERG: Well, I think he did the right thing. I think he absolutely did the right thing. I think there's no call for jail time for what Scooter Libby did. Basically, his conviction was based on a difference in a story between Tim Russert [host of NBC's Meet the Press] and himself. The news media's portraying it as he helped leak the name of a CIA agent. He had nothing to do with that. He was never accused of that. Nobody was prosecuted for that. No one was found guilty of that. It was just he said/she said. They convicted him of lying, and I think the president did the absolute right thing.
MARTIN: Wow. Law and order Steve?
MALZBERG: That's right.
MARTIN: He's not believing that? Now, he said it was just really no big deal. Let's see, Attorney General [John] Mitchell [under Richard Nixon], obstruction of justice, went to jail. Martha Stewart, obstruction of justice, went to jail. Rapper Lil' Kim lied to a grand jury, went to jail. So all these other people can lie to --
MALZBERG: [Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary] Henry Cisneros, pardoned by [then-President Bill] Clinton. Eighteen counts he was indicted on. He pled guilty to lying to the FBI, pardoned by Clinton.
MARTIN: But I can't believe you and law and order!
MALZBERG: What's the difference?
PILGRIM: Let's get Warren in on this. Warren, go ahead.
BALLENTINE: Are you kidding? Are you kidding? Are you kidding me here? I agree with Roland Martin here when he's talking about Martha Stewart and others, but basically this is Tony Soprano taking care of his own. President Bush is basically doing this -- he's doing this for a reason. The reason is this: If Scooter Libby goes to jail, he's going to tell the true story. He is going to tell what's really going on in this administration. Look. Look -- let me tell you something. This administration is faulty, but also this Congress -- it's not just the Republicans, it's the Democrats. All of them are dropping the ball here. [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], what is -- she's a joke. She takes off the table impeachment of this president. He's Tony Soprano now.
MALZBERG: This is the radical left -- radical left dreaming, dreaming.
BALLENTINE: He's untouchable.
PILGRIM: Let's talk about the American public. Hang on one second. Let me talk about the American public. Now, 72 percent say that President Bush should not pardon Scooter Libby. What do you think of that, Charles?
[...]
MALZBERG: The ranting and raving of the radical left. And the reason the polls show that is because this whole case has been misrepresented. They think Scooter Libby leaked the name of a covert CIA agent, which wasn't even leaked.
well, if telling numerous reporters her identity before novak released it is nothing...... if releasing classified material you have sworn an oath to hold confidential is nothing......
Don't worry, Dobbs will correct this misinformation just as soon as he gets around to correcting his misinformation about the leprosy cases in the past few years.
These guys are willing to just lie flat out. I think rightwingers have their shame genes surgically removed at birth
Malzberg: '72% of Americans are STUPIDO, DUM-DUM, STUPID PEOPLE!!' 72% of Americans: 'Malzberg and the rest of you C(ertainly) N(ot) News) bobble-heads... plesase grow a sack and check for your respect and pride at the Riiighthouse's lost and found section.. by the front door...'
WOW! 72% of Americans are "radical left". Beautiful. That means that conversely, 28% of Americans are drooling, knuckle-dragging, brainless nitwits, which ironically, is about the same as bush's (lowercase intentional) approval rating.
I'm thinking of an attempt to make Libby disappear from the media with the publics memory being statements like we've been seeing quite alot of in the days following the commutation. Roughly, supportive of both Libby and shrub.
An option I found on firedoglake. Rep Waxman is planning to introduce a motion of censure, regarding said commutation. Censure is good, some step between hissyfit and impeachment. Any other useful options?
A measure is useful in direct proportion to the distance it creates between Bungle (and his Repugnants) and stewardship of this nation's welfare. There leap to mind numerous useful options, the least of which is impeachment, conviction, followed closely by trial for War Crimes.
Notice how Libby supporters will not touch Libby's lying to FBI agents and obstruction of justice. Notice how they will not touch on the fact that Libby was tried for lying and obstruction of justice.
Robert Hannsen was in charge of catching a mole. The joke was on this country because he was the mole. Just like Bush who said he wanted to get to the bottom of this leak turned out to be the mole as evidenced by his interference with the Libby sentence an interference that will guarantee this country will never get to the bottom of the corruption.
Bush should be sitting in Federal Prison along with Hannsen.
And what was Pilgrim's response?
This is such a weak talking point that it should be easy to dispose of if you want to really pin down someone like Malzberg.
Did Pilgrim finish the conversation and point out that Malzberg is saying something that is a lie?
Should I hold by breath?
MALZBERG: Well, I think he did the right thing. I think he absolutely did the right thing. I think there's no call for jail time for what Scooter Libby did. Basically, his conviction was based on a difference in a story between Tim Russert [host of NBC's Meet the Press] and himself. The news media's portraying it as he helped leak the name of a CIA agent. He had nothing to do with that. He was never accused of that. Nobody was prosecuted for that. No one was found guilty of that. It was just he said/she said. They convicted him of lying, and I think the president did the absolute right thing.
There is not a single false statement in this paragraph.
Um. You think Libby had "nothing to do with [helping leak the name of a CIA agent]"? That is obviously false. Try to keep up. Libby seeded Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper with the information before it was eventually made public by Novak, who was seeded by Armitage.
The administration was spilling seeds all over the place through Rove, Libby, Armitage, Fleisher and possibly others. Novak was just the first one to bear fruit.
Bush loves liars.... he wants them to be free to lie some more... Scotter is a liar and Bush thinks he is swell...
There is a BIG LIE in the statement.
It wasn't a difference between recollections of Russert versus Libby. It was a difference between what Libby told the FBI and the Grand Jury, and THE TRUTH ... which was provided by multiple other witnesses, and never contradicted by anything Libby said or presented as evidence.
Libby thus LIED, and it had nothing to do with a "difference of recollection." It had to do with KNOWING what the truth was ... that he had spoken with multiple other persons about the classified information PRIOR to Novak's story ... and then LIED about it. He is a criminal, as are his bosses.
Amazing what the definition of lying is when you have a "R" instead of a "D".
The news media's portraying it as he helped leak the name of a CIA agent. He had nothing to do with that.
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court [PDF] on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
Basically, his conviction was based on a difference in a story between Tim Russert [host of NBC's Meet the Press] and himself.
Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true," Fitzgerald said.
"He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls -- the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter -- and then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly," he said.
What's especially telling about your comment here is that you completely dismiss the fact that Libby was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers. You have to belive that the JURY was biased against Libby - that you, and the rest of the right-wing apologists for this pardon, have some special insight that the jury was too stupid to see.
Libby had the best lawyers money can buy, and the jury still convicted him. What do you know that they don't?
True. There are three.
Why didn't Libby take the stand in his defense? Certainly it was his Constitutional right not to testify, of course, but if what was at issue was simply a matter of misunderstanding between Libby and others it would appear to me that Libby could have easily explained the dicrepancies and, at least, created a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. Ask yourself why Libby refused to take the witness stand to personally defend himself after the prosecution had made a case for conviction. It certainly is curious, isn't it?
That's easy to answer.
He didn't take the stand because then he would be exposed to more questioning about what he did know, and who told him to leak the name, and where he got the information from, and where it all started (most likely with his boss and his boss' boss and so on). In order to save the administration from any further embaressment, he decided to not take the stand, fall on the sword, and W was waiting with a commutation, and he'll be pardoned eventually wiping clean his record of outing a CIA agent, then lying about it to cover it all up.
"...he'll be pardoned eventually"
And until Libby is pardoned Bush and Cheney don't have to worry about Libby cutting a book deal.
Yes there is it is a flat out lie that Libby had nothing to do with disclosing Plame's identity.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-19-rove-libby-talks_x.htm
WASHINGTON — Prosecutors have gathered evidence that top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby exchanged information about their contacts with reporters regarding Valerie Plame in the days just before the CIA officer's cover was blown. See that contacts with reporters regarding Valerie Plame?Since when do you have to have perpetrated a crime to be involved in covering it up? Obviously a crime occurred. The reason that crime is not being prosecuted is because Libby got in the way of the investigation. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it amazes me that anyone in the country could see this any differently. This is not a complex divisive issue. It's Bush doing what he needed to do to keep his administration out of trouble. Libby knew all along that all he had to do was keep his mouth shut and the president would get him off. As soon as hs appeals were denied, Bush stepped in. It's just absolutely mind-boggling that anyone could see it any other way. Seriously, could someone please explain what the other side of the argument is, because I keep hearing that there is another side to this thing, but I don't believe it.
"Seriously, could someone please explain what the other side of the argument is..."
There is no "other side"... There are the facts, which we easily comprehend, and there is right wing spin which would claim the sky is green if it suited the purpose of keeping their leaders out of trouble.
I just watched Dr. Strange love with a friend of mine. At the round table with President Merky, General Turgeon and General Faceman,it was like looking into machinations of the bush fiasco. Praise the creator of the universe, I refuse to be blinded by the circumlocutious double (sometimes triple and quadruple) speak of the right. I put new batteries in BS filtered ear plugs. The right is suffering from the dreaded "fetid strain of spogyformenchephelopathy (cruthfield jacobs disease) ((mad cow disease)) or the ann coulter syndrome. hantywaste is missing only the fetid strain.
"...this whole case has been misrepresented. They think Scooter Libby leaked the name of a covert CIA agent..."
If that were true, then why does the gentleman not also complain that a majority of Republicans who re-elected George W. Bush believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11?
The difference, however, is that Scooter Libby was not convicted in the court of public opinion. Scooter Libby was convicted by a Federal jury that had the benefit of hearing ALL the evidence firsthand rather than just what was reported in the media.
And what the right wing talking heads are spouting as "talking points". You know, the false information that they throw out there and keep repeating time and again like the well oiled machine that they are at regurgitating their talking points and getting their listeners to repeat them ad nauseum (look at the right wingers posting in here, pete and repeat of everything right wing radio is saying about Scooter and this case).
Thank goodness the American people have seemed to pick up on it. The recent polls on this case and also the polls of the Preisdent's job approval indicate the increasing awareness of the republican propaganda machine.
This is a multifacited problem. The right wing slime machine carefully writes these distortions,falsehoods and fabrications to shift focus on their own incopetency, failures and nefarious activities. This propaganda, when repeated over and over again becomes part of ones "reinforced" memory. One of the priciples in selling is to "tug at the heart strings". When something is rpeated over and over again suggesting the Demos are going to hurt them in some way and saying it with emotion it starts to be believed by the ignorant (no knowledge of) and people not interested in looking at the "imperical evidence", not fox type facts such as half truths, things taken out of context and blatant BS. Then, and this is a true priciple of the mind (Psycho cybernetics Maxwell Maltz and info found in Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill), when people repeat these lies over and over again with emotion (autosuggestion) to other people they start to believe them themselves. The unconscious mind does not destinguish between fact and fiction. It acts on what is fed into it on a "subconscious" level. So, some of these people are essentially brainwashers that end up believing their own BS by telling this BS to others, converts the susceptible into believers. A perfect example of this at work can be seen every Sunday morning between the hours of 10am to 12 noon. This is how goal setting works. Letting the unconscious mind "guide" our concious mind to do something, is in reality what the hype is about in the "new" DVD "the Secret". Which is all out of think and grow rich and how to win friends and enfluence people by Andrew Carnegie. Popaganda and brain washing seems to be what the right does best. I am not impressed with anything baby bush nor any member of his adminillegalstration has done to date. Right after baby bush took office I decided to hold my breath until he did something positive. I am tired of waiting. At the count of five I am going to start breathing again.
Why do they let people like Malzberg on TV?
Almost everyone commenting on this thread could do a better job.
My chorus: these arguments are attempts to make you miss the forrest because of the study of trees. 1. no underlying crime was committed. THERE WAS HOWEVER AN UNDERLYING LEAK AND THE LEAK CAME FROM THE ADMINISTRATION. 2.plame was not covert. whether or not this is true-- THE FACT THAT BREWER JENNINGS WAS A FRONT COMPANY FOR THE CIA WAS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC AND THIS INFORMATION WAS ALSO AN INHERENT PART OF THE LEAK FROM THE ADMINISTRATION. 3. There was no prior knowledge of the fact that Plame's identity was something the CIA did not want revealed (or that she was covert)- BUT CLEARLY -IN SAYING THAT-- THEY ADMIT THAT THE PRESIDENTS RIGHT HAND MAN, THE VP'S RIGHT HAND MAN AND THE UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE DID NOT BOTHER TO DETERMINE THIS BEFORE THEY GAVE THE PRESS THE INFORMATION. 4. In the war on terror our intelligence secrets must be guarded and this takes priority over all else per the adminsitration- BUT BY THEIR OWN DEFENSE IT IS CLEAR THAT THREE HIGH OFFICIALS IN THE ADMINISTRATION NEVER BOTHERED TO ASK IF THE INFORMATION SHOULD BE KEPT FROM PUBLICATION BY THE PRESS.
So even if these questionable propositions are treated as if true just for the purpose of arguing there is one conclusion -- the ADMINISTRATION IS NOT SINCERE IN THE WAR ON TERROR RATHER IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN JUST A MEANS TO INVADE IRAQ. IF THE ADMINISTRATION WERE SINCERE AT LEAST ONE OF THESE 3 RIGHT HAND MEN WOULD HAVE CHECKED FIRST AND NOT EXPOSED THE FRONT COMPANY. I accuse you apologists of also being insincere about the war on terror. If you are sincere why do you support an administration that is so reckless with intelligence. this is the real issue and not whether or not a specific crime was committed. the defense to the mens rhea(mental state) element is specifically an admission of recklessness. EG "I did not committ premeditated murder because I never looked at where I fired the gun before I shot it. So the shooting death is not my crime" Stop losing track of the real issue.
they were actually required to know. there was no assuming it was not secret. they were to assume it was classified until they knew for sure that it had been officially declassified. and that is a set process that any info to be released must go through.