Slammer Libby

I'm not one to gloat, I genuinely feel that Scoot committed a somewhat honorable, if misguided and ultimately criminal, act. My problem is with the cabal's peculiar and specific code of honor. And how criticism, of any kind, addles their response mechanisms. If this shiny gem of a scandal proves anything, it proves that this was a case of classic over reaction to a situation where, of all things, vengeance, pay-back, political assassination, call it what you will was unnecessary. That they went to such lengths to discredit one of their own and then attempted to cover up and remove themselves from the process by means of denial, obfuscation and deceit speaks volumes about this administrations immaturity and their over-simplistic, flawed decision making process.

That Scooter was willing to lie to and obstruct an FBI investigation with the express intent of protecting his bosses from having to tell the truth is ludicrously juvenile thinking. Unfortunately this kind of thinking is rampant in the Bush administration, where a twisted loyalty system governs over logic and principle. That loyalty only goes so far though because, ultimately their code of honor is based on the singular act of self preservation. As with the Gonzalez situation, they allow this poor, out-of-his-depth, hack to twist in the wind in order to protect the inner circle.

What motivates these second tier dispensibles to such blind loyalty is beyond me. They will eventually and inevitably be tossed aside as circumstances dictate and most probably be ridiculed all the way out by party members, right wing pundits and wingnuttia in general. That kind of humiliation must be tough even for a dyed in the wool neocon apparatchik to take but, take it they do. There must be some big golden parachutes out there in repugland.

But Scooter now makes the ultimate sacrifice, he will go to jail, his humiliation complete and sweeping and for what? To protect the men who allowed him to go through this ordeal, who's orders he was undertaking, who watch from the sidelines, silent as his life and career go down the toilet. That to me is not loyalty, it's idiocy, it's stark, raving madness. Pardon or no pardon, Scooter's reputation can never be rehabilitated, he will always be associated with scandal, his image etched into the pantheon of National Enquirer front pages, poor bugger! Telling the truth, though apparently inconceivable, would have made for very different headlines.