Lies never die with these people

FDL has owned the Libby/Plame story since it broke and now FDL contributor, Scarecrow, has written a good explanation of the backstory and the significance of BushCo's current "massive disinformation campaign".

The case began when the Vice President of the United States and his Chief of Staff (and Assistant to the President) conspired to smear an American Ambassador, Joe Wilson, and to smear his CIA agent wife, Valerie Wilson, both of whom had served their country with honor and courage. The smears were perpetrate to punish both Joe and Valerie, and to intimidate others, for telling the truth about the Administration's complicity in the false claims about WMD. If nothing more had happened, using their offices to smear decent, honorable people would be enough to earn the nation's contempt for Vice President Cheney, Scooter Cheney, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and everyone else who participated in smearing these loyal Americans. But the President's men didn't stop there. They never do.

While they were smearing the Wilsons, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and others in the White House recklessly shared classified information about Valerie Wilson and then participated in a scheme to expose Valerie Wilson's CIA employment and position. In the process, they either deliberately or recklessly revealed her classified status (which Fitzgerald again asserted was "100 percent certain"), destroyed her career, blew her cover and the cover of anyone else connected with her cover operation. And all of this caused as yet unknown harm (because it's classified) to the nation's intelligence capabilities in the area of nuclear weapons proliferation, one of the most important national security topics of our age. That is why the CIA angrily asked the Justice Department to investigate the outing of one of their agents.

Now Scooter Libby, the man who the President was asked to implement this despicable scheme has been found guilty of lying about his and the Vice President's role in this shameful episode. But instead of showing the slightest remorse, embarassment or responsibility for this sorry chapter, Mr. Libby had his attorneys still proclaiming his innocence, the Vice President joined the defense counsel in expressing disappointment, Karl Rove is hiding, the White House won't comment, the President expressed concern only for Mr. Libby and his family, and the Administration's apologists are still lying and still smearing the Wilsons!

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Lies never die with these people. The guilty verdicts changed nothing for them. All of the lies that have been repeatedly discredited are still being told by the Administration's supporters without shame and too often without response. The cover up continues and is in full force. Libby is still the fire wall to protect Cheney and others, and the apologists and neocons are working very hard to make sure he stays the firewall. The strategy now seems to create a dominant view that a pardon is not only fair to poor fallguy Scooter Libby but inevitable. So there's no reason to wait.

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Yesterday's jury verdict was an important victory for American justice, but only if Libby's conviction leads to further investigations and is not negated. And this story is connected to the continuing horrors of the war, the exploding scandal of disgraceful conditions facing returning veterans, the suspicious firing of US Attorneys (watch TPM) and every other story we've been following about the duplicity and extreme lawlessness of this regime. If the American people have had enough of this lawlessness and the horrors it has created and justified, they — we — need to demand that Congress investigate every aspect of this matter and every story that connects to it, and then demand more indictments and prosecutions.