Now Dickerson Knows How Libby Feels

I got in early and have a ringside seat in the media room.

Until something happens, here's a post I did for the American Thinker respecting the Fleischer testimony yesterday:

January 30, 2007

Now Dickerson Knows How Libby Must Feel

Clarice Feldman
At yesterday's hearing in the Libby Trial, Ari Fleischer testified under an immunity deal that he had eaten a lunch with Libby, who told him Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA, that she played a role in sending her husband to Niger and the whole thing  was "hush hush." Fleischer also testified that he told two reporters after hearing similar information from White House counsel Dan Bartlett, The names of the two reporters, David Gregory who works for Tim Russert's MSNBC and  John Dickerson who once worked for Time and now works for Slate, were surprising because David Gregory seemed to deny knowledge of Plame before the Novak article and Dickerson had long ago written an account at complete odds with this version.

Dickerson quickly wrote of the experience of suddenly finding himself singled out in this way by a claim at utter odds with his contemporaneous recollection of the events:

So, how to explain Ari's testimony? I've covered him for 12 years, since I reported on tax policy and he was a spokesman for the Ways and Means committee, and he's never lied to me. Shaded, wiggled, and driven me around the bend with his spin, yes. (I wasn't a fan of his book, either.) But he never outright lied, and I don't see how it would be in his interest here. More likely, he admitted to prosecutors more than he may have actually done because better to err on the side of assuming he disclosed too much than assuming he gave over too little. (Emphasis supplied.)

How does Ari's testimony affect the perjury and obstruction of justice case against Libby? It certainly complicates it. For starters, when this piece appears, it may get me out of my press seat and into that uncomfortable little witness box. It hurts the prosecution if Ari admitted something he didn't do, because they're relying on his memory. Libby is on trial for saying he didn't know about Wilson's wife and that he learned it from NBC's Tim Russert. Fleischer contradicts that. He claims that Libby told him about Wilson's wife at a lunch in early July, long before Libby ever talked to Russert. If they can poke holes in Ari's recollection of what he told me, they can raise doubts about what Ari remembers Scooter telling him.

If Gregory and Dickerson take the stand and deny what Fleischer said, it will surely undermine his credibility. Dickerson denied the story absolutely. If he admitted it, his two written accounts would impeach that admission.

But if Gregory confirms the Fleischer account, it becomes harder to believe Russert's fuzzy denial that he had no knowledge of the Wilson-Plame-CIA account. Either way, flaws in Fitzgerald's case are exposed.

Before this is over the media may find they should have been more skeptical of Wilson's account and less delighted that a special prosecutor with no constraints whatsoever was appointed to handle this matter.

Be careful what you wish for.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/01/now_dickerson_knows_how_libby.html

Comments

[centralcal]

Amen, Clarice. No matter what side one is on politically (and, lets face it, this is a politically driven trial), no matter how this turns out for Libby (acquittal or conviction/pardon), this trial is creating the sort of cool, dry air that comes into the bathroom and defogs the mirror...the reflection in the mirror was blurry and now it is crisp and clear. The reflection I am referring to is that of the Washington Media. I find it especially delicious that so many "names" of the media are interwoven in this tale - and so many of them are connected in one way or another with NBC!

[Sue]

Where are you live blogging Clarice?

[Sue]

Nevermind.

[politicaobscura]

Okay, I've been following this case off and on, but am no expert, but I did read Dickerson's article in Slate this morning.

Dickerson writes the following:

""Libby is on trial for saying he didn't know about Wilson's wife and that he learned it from NBC's Tim Russert."

Isn't Dickerson wrong about that central part of the case? My understanding is that Libby has said that he first heard about Wilson's wife from the Vice President. I went to look for it in the indictment and found this:

"while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that he previously had learned about Wilson's wife's employment from the Vice President."

What am I missing here? Dickerson asks that we believe his version of events, but he is untrustworthy on even the most basic facts of the case on which he is being paid to cover!!!??

If I am incorrect, please correct me because I have always been under the assumption that Libby heard it first from the VP and has said such. Is Dickerson talking out of his a55?

[Florence Schmieg]

I am beginning to think that the media is peopled with individuals who just aren't that bright.

[PaulL]

Virtually no one in the media has the basic facts correct. I'd guess that 99% of the people in the country who know about this trial think that Libby is on trial for revealing the identity of a CIA agent.

[Pofarmer]

"while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that he previously had learned about Wilson's wife's employment from the Vice President."

Exactly, on that count, it would certainly appear that Libbly is on trial for either a)lying to, or b)disagreeing with, Tim Russert.

Since when is it a crime to lie to a reporter? They lie to us all the time.

[Pofarmer]

I am beginning to think that the media is peopled with individuals who just aren't that bright.

Having been around J Students in a highly regarded J School. I couldn't agree more.

[hit and run]

Since when is it a crime to lie to a reporter? They lie to us all the time.

Q: When do you know a pol is lying to a reporter?

A: When their lips are moving?

NO! That just conventional wisdom poppycock.

A: When they compliment them or indicate pleasure to be in their presence.

[cathyf]

""Libby is on trial for saying he didn't know about Wilson's wife and that he learned it from NBC's Tim Russert."

Isn't Dickerson wrong about that central part of the case?

While it's missing the central point, politicaobscura, it's not wrong, either.

Libby's assertion is that he heard from the vice president in June, and wrote it in his notes, but that he didn't learn about it until the July 9/10 conversation with Russert. In the same sense that you take a class, and the professor says something in a lecture, and you write it in your notes, but you don't learn it as a result. (And everyone has common-sense personal experience with this, except for the people who not only got 100% on every test they ever took in their whole lives, but also all of those things that they learned they learned the very first time that they were ever exposed to it.)

I'll continue this with what I think is a fair analogy of what Libby is charged with. Student Scooter is taking a class in American Liturature, and he reads Rip Van Winkle on June 13th. Then, in November, he tells the FBI that he was talking to student Timmy, on July 10th, and Timmy make a comment referring to the the name of Rip Van Winkle's dog. Scooter tells the FBI that, while sure, the name of the dog was in the story, when he heard it from Timmy it was like hearing it for the first time, because he missed it when he read the story.

Student Ari swears, under oath, that Scooter told him about Rip Van Winkle's dog's name at lunch on July 7th, so Scooter gets indicted for perjury for telling the FBI that he was ignorant about the dog until July 10th. Student Ari also testifies under oath that he told school newspaper reporters Johnny and Davy all about Rip Van Winkle's dog.

1) Johnny and Davy say publicly that Ari didn't tell them about the dog, just recommended that they read the story and told them it was really good.

2) On the afternoon of July 7th, Ari read another story which was a modern re-telling of the Rip Van Winkle story, told from the dog's point of view. At the time, he talked to another student, Danny, who had also just read the story from the dog's point of view. On the morning of July 7th, Ari talked on the phone with another school newspaperman Bobby, who had been told about the Rip Van Winkle story that was told from the dog's point of view two days before and encouraged to write a story about it by Dickie.

3) Two years later, it turns out that Scooter talked to another school newspaperman, Robby, on June 22nd and June 23rd. On June 13th, Dickie had told Robby all about the story from the dog's point of view, which Dickie had gotten from his buddy Marc on June 12th.

(For everyone who thinks I'm out of my mind -- yes, my sophmore high school English teacher did ask "What's Rip Van Winkle's dog's name" on an exam.)

[maryrose]

cathyf:
Your good explanation shows how convoluted this entire case is and how stupid these indictments are. The public and the media have the entire case and the facts all wrong. It's a travesty.

[hit and run]

Would it be inappropriate for the defense, when asking questions about events that witnesses do not recall said,

"So, you might say that you are hearing this as if for the first time..."

Give the jurors a good catch-phrase...

[steve]

After reading cathyf's brilliant analogical synopsis, which is lacking only in that it contains no potential motivations for anyone to lie, I think that there is no need for the defense to present any coherent theory of its own about what happened.

They just have to say, ""This situation is really confusing and nobody (including prosecution witnesses and media participants) can remember what happened or what their state of mind was at the time they said/heard various things. We're not even sure if Libby was really claiming, in his grand jury testimony, to have remembered about Mr. Wilson's wife only after speaking with Tim Russert. How can there be anything but reasonable doubt that Mr. Libby tried to obstruct justice or commit perjury?"

[cathyf]

steve, I would make a different conclusion...

The bedrock legal tool of taking witness testimony when establishing criminal intent only works when something has triggered witnesses to remember the events. In an investigation where witnesses were aware of an actual crime taking place, that is a trigger to remember events. When there is nothing to cause witnesses to remember the events, then all you get is useless unbelievable mush. And it's nobody's fault.

So my conclusion is that you should only use the tools of criminal investigations on crimes. We shouldn't expect those tools to work on non-crimes.