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Scooter Smiles
By Nick Barnicle If there’s one thing we can all agree on when it comes to what Time calls the “Imus implosion” it’s that the media world is rapidly changing. So much so that the definition of “news” itself is debatable, but we all knew this months ago when another high-profile story came to a conclusion. *** Five federal indictments didn’t seem to bother Scooter Libby on the afternoon of February 23, 2007. Although this blustery Friday was the second day of deliberations for a jury that would eventually find him guilty on four of those five charges, Mr. Libby had no problems smiling. He smiled as he chatted with his wife on the John Marshall Park side of the Prettyman Courthouse, he smiled and even joked with guards as he entered the building a few minutes later, and he smiled as he sauntered passed the media room on the first floor. For by that point, more than five years after the CIA leak case, or “Leakgate,” began and the cable news and blogosphere craze turned his world into one long sound bite, Mr. Libby probably couldn’t do anything else but smile. Scooter was now just the face of a larger story. A story that was not only covered by the media but involved the media. From New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s contempt of court and subsequent imprisonment to Time writerMatthew Cooper’s subpoena, and NBC’s Tim Russert’s bombshell appearance in court this was a story that shook the media establishment to its core. But at a simpler level, it was a story like any other in this cable-crazed world. *** It is a story about names, about dates, about truth and lies, and war, and government, and the media and how all those things can come together. It is a story that began like a bad spy novel and climaxed like an even worse episode of a television court drama. And even with the March 6th convictions there does not seem to be any end to the story; not with all the Congressional hearings and appeals anyway. But it is a story that began simply enough with a trip to Africa in 2002. The “trip,” actually a CIA sanctioned fact-finding mission, was made to investigate a piece of intelligence that claimed Iraq had attempted to buy a type of enriched uranium called “yellowcake,” from the nation of Niger. Such a purchase would have left no doubt that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, was a clear and present danger to the United States of America. The operative who made the trip: Joseph C. Wilson IV. Joe Wilson had been a foreign service officer for over 23 years and was a respected authority on Africa by the time he made a trip to Niger in late February of 2002, spent more than a week investigating a claim that involved the very dangerous “yellowcake,” and then came back to Washington and reported to the proper authorities that the claim was positively false. Yet less than a year later, in January of 2003, the former Ambassador listened as President Bush uttered these 16 words in his State of the Union address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Joe Wilson knew the claim was false. He knew because he spent eight days in the Nigerien capital of Niamey investigating the claim. And as he watched the nation become involved in a war supported in part by the very claim he disproved he could not help but think the entire nation was being lied to. And by the early summer of 2003, only months after the invasion of Iraq, it was becoming increasingly evident that WMD (weapons of mass destruction) did not exist and that the supposed threat had been, at the very least, misinterpreted. But the White House, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, continued to claim things like “yellowcake.” And by July 6, 2003 Joe Wilson had had enough. It was on that Sunday that Mr. Wilson’s Op- Ed entitled “What I Didn’t Find In Africa” appeared in The New York Times. In the article he details who he is, what his mission was, and, obviously, the fact that he did not find any evidence of a supposed yellowcake purchase. The article was big news, at least for a little while. The news was trumped a week later when Robert Novak, a credible right-wing columnist, exposed the fact that Joe Wilson had been sent to Niger because his wife worked for the CIA. He named Mr. Wilson’s wife: Valerie Plame. And in fact it is true that Valerie Plame is Mr. Wilson’s wife. And in fact it may be true that Plame had a role in sending Wilson to Niger. But Plame is a CIA operative and to knowingly disclose the name of a spy is a crime. The FBI began investigating and suggested to the Department of Justice that a special counsel be named and on December 30, 2003 Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed. Mr. Fitzgerald who is the United States attorney from Chicago and is known for his dogged pursuit of the law investigated the case for more than a year attempting to find out who leaked the name of the CIA operative Valerie Plame. And on October 28, 2005 he handed down the indictments of I. Lewis Libby also known as “Scooter” Libby. Fitzgerald, at that point, had not finished his investigation into the leak case, but was confidant that Scooter Libby lied during the investigation and so charged him with five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and two counts of false statements. *** All those names, dates, the charges- all that was condensed very nicely outside courtroom number 16 on the 23rd of February. For it was there, outside the double doors of the 6th floor courtroom that saw so much drama during the trial that a single sheet of white paper hung with two names neatly printed: The United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby. And at that point, with the jury methodically deliberating for the second day, there was nothing much to do except wait. The two guards outside the judge’s chambers waited. The attorneys in the case having been put on “15 minute call” waited nearby. Still photographers and cameramen knowing well that no images could be taken inside the courthouse waited outside in the bitter cold. And downstairs on the first floor in a small space off the hall reporters waited in the media room. And it is because of this room more than the Judge’s, or the attorneys’, or even the jury’s that Scooter Libby had been reduced to nothing more than a smile as he entered the courthouse a little after 2:30 in the afternoon. Because in that small room along with print reporters like the New York Daily News’ James Gordon Meek and cable superstars like MSNBC’s David Shuster, there waited the blogger. The new-aged and fast growing group of pundits was represented that day by Jane Hamsher and her blog FIREDOGLAKE. The producer turned reporter’s blog in particular parlayed the trial into a coming out party of sorts for the blog community. Hamsher is one of the first bloggers to be given press credentials for a trial and because there was no cameras allowed inside, her “Libby Live Trial Blog,” as it was called, was one of the few sources of up-to-the-minute coverage. *** TV cameramen in big white trucks eating takeout and drinking coffee; still photographers gossiping by the doorway; cable newsmen, print reporters, and bloggers privileged to seats but doing much the same; security guards watching exits; attorneys waiting; and jurors deliberating; a “live” running commentary established by the same woman who helped produce Natural Born Killers and the very real consequences of a trial in the balance. Such was the scene on the 23rd day of February 2007. And the very successful man at the center of it all, a man whose obituary will nonetheless lead with the fact that he was found guilty on four federal charges? Well, Scooter smiled.
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