This Is Cruel, But...

I really shouldn't do this because we all have failed predictions in our closet, but this is just too funny.

Libby was asked during his grand jury testimony when he might have met with Judy Miller, and said this:

F: Do you remember talking to Judith Miller on July 8th?

(discussion of what Miller had been up to — just back from Iraq, etc.)

L: This was our first meeting, or she may have come to my office once before.

"Once before" turned out to be June 23, 2003.  Judy Miller, of course, had no recollection at all of meeting with Libby on June 23 when she first met with the grand jury, but had an idea she may have spoken with his assistant.  However, Fitzgerald asked her to check her notes, she found some, and she eventually testified quite extravagantly about her June 23 meeting.

With that as background, let's have some ex post hilarity at the expense of Christy Hardin-Smith, a former prosecutor and current Bush-loather (so guess where her sympathies lie?).

In Ms. Hardin-Smith's world Special Counsel Fitzgerald walks on water except on those occasions when he elects to spread his angel wings and fly.  So let's open the time vault and have Ms. Hardin-Smith tell us how Fitzgerald cracked the cover-up of the June 23 meeting:

The beauty of being a Federal Prosecutor with a mind like a steel trap and a loyal staff of lawyers and investigators is that you have all the means at your disposal to try and track down every single piece of evidence: every scrap of paper, every note, every receipt, every entry log every photo, everything you can get your hands on, before ever asking a question of anyone on the record in court.

...

In this particular matter, what Judy and Scooter forgot is that they are dealing with a professional. Not some slackass, just out of law school, wet behind the ears kid. Not some political social climber who would sell his mother for a Senate seat or a nomination to the Federal bench. Not some guy who was going to phone it in because he didn’t want to piss off the high and mighty and powerful. This guy is a professional prosecutor, who does his job. Period.

You don’t prosecute the Gambinos, Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman, Osama Bin Laden and former Governor Ryan of Illinois just for kicks. Those cases are all long, hard slogs, and potentially very deadly to your career as well as your person.

And when you do your job, you find things like this: all government buildings after 9/11 (and even before 9/11 in a lot of cases) require that you sign in and out. That goes double for buildings where you have the potential for someone being around national security documents or highly placed government officials, because you don’t want something disappearing without some written record of who has had access to the building. You follow the paper trail, the evidence in hand, the usual patterns of behavior, and sometimes even your gut — but it is the little details that nail someone to the wall.

During her first go at her testimony, Judy was evasive and could not recall whether or not she had ever met with Scooter on June 23rd, when asked specifically about this by the Special Prosecutor. (Note to witnesses: If the prosecutor is asking you about a date certain, he has something that he will nail your ass with unless you are completely truthful. Keep that in mind in the future.)

Yeah, yeah, my daughters swoon for Orlando Bloom, so I am familiar with the sentiment.

Anyway, the defense has introduced an exhibit highlighting Fitzgerald's monumentally insightful detective work, to wit, Libby's calendar for June 23, 2003.  Ms. Miller was scheduled for a half hour at 3:00.

Evidently Mr. Steel Trap was able to infer from that subtle clue that Libby had a meeting set up with Judy, and well done!

Too bad Mr. Steel Trap had not asked for Armitage's calendar for June - he would have noticed Bob Woodward's name, and maybe even asked a few useful questions.

Oh, well.  The Evil Impulse has passed (I hope...).  And lest you wonder - I was siding with Jeralyn Merritt against the "Judy Is Sooo Busted" meme even back in the day.

LATE HIT:  From Libby's March 24, 2004 grand jury testimony:

LIBBY:  ...so I called [Ms. Miller] and she was glad to come in, and we had a --my
recollection is we had a meeting in my office some weeks before July 8th.

Q. And when you met her, and when you say some weeks before, we are talking May, June, spring of 2003?

LIBBY: I don' t recall. It would be on my schedule. And
that would be the first time I met her, as I recall.

You can observe a lot just by watching.

Comments

[Syl]

Heh!

and

I love your style!

[clarice]

Syl, you are such an , an enabler.

[Sue]

If Syl can post, can I? In IE, I mean? Crossing fingers and hitting post!

[Sue]

::grin::

[Deagle]

Ah, and this blog (especially regarding the Libby trial) is just Wonderful! Thanks to Tom for bring all these beautiful bloggers together. (Special thanks to Clarice for putting the lawyer talk into English)...

[hit and run]

(Special thanks to Clarice for putting the lawyer talk into English)...

Her typing skills notwithstanding.

(--Hey! That was uncalled for!)

I know. But it's beyond my control.

[clarice]

*THWACK!!!!!!!!!!! h & r**********
Thanks, Deagle.

[TallDave]

Remember when Ken Starr was investigating actual perjury by someone who actually mattered in an investigation where people were charged with actual crimes?

I'm sure Christy Hardin Smith got out her special prosecutorial kneepads for him, too.

[topsecretk9]

Paragraph 4 of the excerpted Hardin made me grin...it made me think of the classified Holy Cross docs accidentally turned over to the defense at the court house.

[Dan S]

H&R,

You got thwacked! I'm soooo envious!

And TM...

Easy on the snark. It's really hard to control once you get started. And there are so many targets.

[ed]

Hmmmm.

Frankly I've been reading through this stuff and the only things I've been able to glean:

1. What an astonishing assortment of bad memories.

2. What? Nobody takes good notes anymore?

3. This trial has an amazing level of soporific blandness.

4. Has anybody gotten on the witness stand and actually made a point?

5. This whole thing is like a Lifetime channel made for tv movie.

[Chants]

Ms. Smith's moral compass points in one of two directions: Good or bad.

And with such a crudely dichotomous perspective, it should be no surprise her political essays read like fairy tales.

[Deagle]

Ed,

Exactly, makes you wonder what the purpose of this trial is all about - doesn't it?

[Jane]

Instapundit thinks TM's "cruelty" is hilarious. I agree.

[Sara (Squiggler)]

2. What? Nobody takes good notes anymore?

In my high school, we were required to turn in an end-of-the-year thesis in each year, 9th, 10, 11, and 12th grade.

We started by selecting our subject/topic and then, using 3x5 note cards, we were expected to use the library liberally and document our research with a bibliographic citation to the source and the notes of our research including well-cited full quotations.

From our notes we constructed an outline and from the outline a written paper, expected to be somewhere between 35 to 50 pages in length, double-spaced and containing all footnotes and a full bibliography at the end.

50% of our grade was based on how good our notes and cites were, 50% on the actual completed paper, graded for content and grammar.

I always thought this was standard high school fare, but based on what I see nowadays, it seems this was exceptional.

One of my four finished papers was on Albert Camus and my teacher sent me back to my notes at least 10 times because she felt I'd missed the whole philosophical understanding of "know thyself." Don't students in the last forty years get any training like we did on the high school level? Even in college?

[centralcal]

Jane:

Do you guys ever wonder if the law professor side of Glen Reynolds spends more time lurking here than he lets on?

[hit and run]

Clarice:
*THWACK!!!!!!!!!!! h & r**********

That felt sooooo good.

I won't say more. I might get myself banned.

[Jane]

Do you guys ever wonder if the law professor side of Glen Reynolds spends more time lurking here than he lets on?

He is everywhere. I don't have a clue how he does it. I don't think it has a thing to do with the law professor side tho.

[hit and run]

I'm sure Reynolds gets tips from readers everywhere. Not sure how he filters that much tho

Though she hasn't been as visible (in the places I go anyway) in a while the person who really is everywhere is larwyn.

[ROA]

Obama takes good notes. From one of his fellow classmates at Occidental: "Where I had five pages, Barry (Obama) had probably a paragraph of the pithiest, tightest prose you'd ever see…. It was very short, very sweet. Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style."

[Deagle]

ROA,

Interesting way to get Obama into the conversation. I give it a 4.5...

[hit and run]

Sara:
2. What? Nobody takes good notes anymore?

In my high school, we were required to turn in an end-of-the-year thesis in each year, 9th, 10, 11, and 12th grade.

We started by selecting our subject/topic and then, using 3x5 note cards

...

While I'm not exactly a young whippersnapper, I did have a different experience.

Well, specific to note taking - I was a horrible student. Horrible. Couldn't pay me to be interested. For a while in highschool I came up with a way to hold my interest in what the teacher was saying.

I took notes by writing upside down and backward.

Alas, tho, my disdain for school soon overwhelmed the novelty of this approach.

[maryrose]

Please don"t compare Clinton and Obama in the same sentence. Clinton couldn't even be a patch on a pair of Obama's old jeans.One man has a solid character and a believable life story the other is a charlatan as well as a rogue.50/50 chance he will yet derail Hil's presidential campaign. And this time she won't get the sympathy vote. Only New Yorkers are dumb enough to fall for that ruse.

[centralcal]

OT: Michelle Malkin is saying to pray for our troops. There is talk that the surge has begun (2,000) in an area of Bagdhad.

[maryrose]

sara:
Our current juniors and seniors have to do exactly what you described only with a shorter paper. I had the identical training in high school. The nuns were very thorough.

[AST]

How could you not knock a pitch like that over the wall? "a mind like a steel trap"? Who writes like that anymore, except in parody?

These FDL bloggers all write like they've just been given testosterone injections. They're just begging to be mocked.

As for Reynolds, he lurks everywhere, comments only on his own blog. He's the pinball wizard of blogging. Don't know how he does it.

[Other Tom]

As an incorribible gloater, I pray--I pray most fervently--that someone is able to call to the attention of that dim-witted bobby-soxer the extent to which she is now the subject of ridicule. I'd do it myself, but having strayed from the plantation at FDL, I can no longer post there. Please--will someone, somehow, confirm to us all that this embarrassing, self-absorbed fool has had this brought to her attention? Oh, God, this is rich!

[MayBee]

If Fitzgerald does put the DOJ guy on the stand to explain to Imus why he limited the way he subpoenaed reporters, could the defense ask questions like
-were there any DOJ regulations against asking for Richard Armitage's calendar?
-were there any DOJ regulations against asking for State Department emails or phone records?
- were there any DOJ regulations against telling Mr. Libby whether or not Mrs. Wilson had been covert?
-were there any DOJ regulations about throwing a reporter in prison if the highest crime you believe you can charge is perjury?
-Did the DoJ feel any pressure from Democrats such as John Conyers?
-Does the DoJ appreciate ranking members of the Congressional Judiciary committee writing letters to subjects of the investigation, implying it makes them look guilty if the reporter remains imprisoned by the Special Prosecutor?

[hit and run]

Other Tom, I tried. i really did. I've only been to FDL a couple times now during the trial to read the liveblogging. I went to the last liveblog thread and started reading through comments to see if anyone had made any JOM mention.

I had to abort. Seriously, if I'm gonna kill brain cells at that kind of rate, I'm at least gonna do it getting high like huffing paint thinner or something. That was brutal.

And sad:

Solai says:

February 6th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

What is bothering me (enormously) is that there needs to be more indictments after this trial. If finding Libby guilty of perjury etc. is the only result of all this, then I will be devastated. I need to have others indicted for revealing Plame’s name to feel that there is justice. So, what do you think? It seems Rove will not be indicted. Will anyone else? Finding L guilty will in NO WAY satisfy my need to believe that there is justice in this country. This administration has done such harm to our country and they keep getting away with it. I NEED to have someone STOP them.

[buddy larsen]

Solai sounds like Squeaky Fromme.

[centralcal]

H & R: did you notice how many times Solai said "I need" - Lordy, it is always about me, me, me with the far left.

[DAA]

How about Armitage, the actual leaker?

[DAA]

How about Armitage, the actual leaker?

[Oxbay]

Jane and AST

Instapundit accomplishes by being the fastest reader in the west, so to speak. I don't know him but it's the only credible explanation for his prolific ways.

[Jane]

Fast reader, concise, and a clear pithy writer as well. It's a gift!

[hit and run]

buddy larsen:
Solai sounds like Squeaky Fromme.

I'm picking up hints of "CheChe"

[Carol Herman]

FROM CAROL HERMAN

InstaPundit is linking to you! Letting people know you've got Mr. Steel Trap, and Christy-Hardin Smith COVERED! WOW! Coming from a law professor, that must hurt! I think a "wet behind the ears" law school student approach would have been nicer.

And, this is what's called Fitz' "flying machine?" When he's not walking on water? The only thing Fitz has done with "water" is tie his case to something that doesn't hold any.

[Other Tom]

Well, at least the estimable Solai will be "devastated" by the outcome, no matter what. That in itself is nice to know.

[Wes S.]

From the descriptions of the Libby trial thus far, one wonders if the Libby jury has itself been forced to resort to tricks like HitandRun's upside down-and-backwards note taking to stay awake...

In any event, the basic truth about the Libby trial remains the same: The one man who we positively know is a liar...is the alleged victim, not the defendant.

[hit and run]

From the descriptions of the Libby trial thus far, one wonders if the Libby jury has itself been forced to resort to tricks like HitandRun's upside down-and-backwards note taking to stay awake...

If a juror launched a spitwad at Fitz, would the livebloggers be able to pick that up?

[M. Simon]

I have it direct from Tony Rezko that Obama is a stand up guy.

[ed]

Hmmmmm

1. @ Deagle

Exactly, makes you wonder what the purpose of this trial is all about - doesn't it?

Well I figure this is either a payback by Fitz for a down payment on future Democratic party support for a federal judgeship or a seat in Congress.

-or-

This is payback to Libby on behalf of Comey, the former Dir of DOJ who actually appointed Fitz as special prosecutor.

Otherwise this whole thing is more or less an escapade into complete nonsense.

2. @ Sara (Squiggler)

In my high school, we were required to turn in an end-of-the-year thesis in each year, 9th, 10, 11, and 12th grade.

We started by selecting our subject/topic and then, using 3x5 note cards,

Yup, same here. Got out of high school in 1982 and had to do the same sorts of things. Plus I, along with many others, got the opportunity to do the damn things on IBM Selectric typewriters and acquire an intimate relationship with correction tape.

Thank God for wordprocessing. Kids today don't realise how good they have it, the whiny little bastards.

I say let's bring typewriters back into schools so *they* can get a taste of how crappy life can be!! :)

[ed]

Hmmm.

And no calculators either! In class or tests. No laptops, no computers, no cellphones.

They get a #2 pencil and a pad of paper.

...

I guess I've finally stepped over the edge from middle-aged to curmudgeon. :)

[ROA]

Deagle,

4.5 out of 5, 10, 100 or some other number?

[sophy]

I do not know how to use the knight online gold ; my friend tells me how to use

[LOTRO Gold]

When you have LOTRO Gold, you can get more!