Charles Krauthammer writes a piece, today, that both argues well the merits of Lewis Libby's case and illustrates the arrogance of partisan efforts to take people down.
Fitzgerald's Folly
What's interesting about Charles' piece is that he simultaneously takes apart the generally politically-motivated case for putting Lewis Libby in prison and defends the poor case for prosecuting Bill Clinton and the vitriol of conservatives in going after Sandy Berger.
The bottom line is that this prosecution, like so many prosecutions of public figures, was largely political. It isn't political in a conventional sense. Patrick Fitzgerald is a Republican going after a Republican Chief of Staff for a Republican Vice President. What is political about this trial and this prosecution is that it is meant to validate a growing sense among many established journalists, politicians and advisors and legal and political folks that the Bush Administration took them on a wild goose chase in Iraq and that the Valerie Plame affair was yet another dirty-handed way of washing their hands of that fated decision. All kinds of folks both blaming the Administration for a decision to that was largely popular at the time, especially in those established circles - I thought it was a rash move and said so at a time when very few people did so publicly, certainly not very many among either Republican or Democratic political establishments - and are trying to validate their sense that something tough must be done to hold them accountable both for that decision and allegations that they outed Plame out of revenge and dirty tricks. The essence of the growing and tough-minded consensus among many political observers is that the Administration lied about the war in Iraq, that they smeared a CIA agent who dared challenge their lies, and that what is needed is for someone's head to roll.
The first claim is partly true. The Administration did, likely, exaggerate claims about weapons of mass destruction to advocate this war. We do know that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons, because he had used them before on the Kurds. But we had no clue about a nuclear program, is the truth, and the evidence for that claim was trumped up to bolster an already present desire to invade Iraq, take advantage of anger after 9/11, and "take the fight to the terrorists."
The second claim - that the Administration was trying to get revenge on Joseph Wilson - I'm not as convinced about. I'm convinced that the Administration was pretty slimy in demoting Richard Clarke as he warned the Administration that the war might inspire a new generation of terrorists and might likely be counterproductive. But I'm not convinced that the Administration was engaging in revenge against Valerie Plame. I used to think, out of cynicism, largely, but with very little evidence, that this was likely true, when this story first broke and it was Karl Rove and not Lewis Libby who was the focus of peoples' hostility. But, in retrospect, what I was largely feeling was anger both about the decision to go to war and about the denials by the Administration that things were going better than they were, when it was clear to more objective and forward-looking observers that things were not going so well, which is exactly what many important counterterrorism and international policy observers warned the President would likely happen (though, in the President's defense, important international policy scholars, like Joe Nye, signed onto this war when he first announced its possibility, only to rethink the war in retrospect). I didn't really have much evidence that the Administration was engaged in dirty tricks, but I had all kinds of suspicions with the Richard Clarke saga finding its way to front pages.
So, I have serious doubts and reservations about the second claim and have seen very little evidence, as of yet, that it is true, especially given that it looks like Valerie Plame was not, in fact, covert, something that is reinforced by the instructions by the judge to ignore the original criminal allegations in question. And the second claim means a lot to me since catching someone in a technicality when there may not be a serious wrong in the first place is itself generally dirty pool, in my estimation, very comparable to the dirty pool engaged in by Bill Clinton's impeachment prosecutors almost a decade ago.
The third claim is really the one that troubles me the most: that heads need to roll. It not only troubles me because I'm not clear that there was a underlying crime or any serious underlying wrongdoing in this situation, nor just because lying to a prosecutor when you are afraid that you might be prosecuted, even if there is no crime, is both a human and clearly, from the cases of Lewis Libby and Bill Clinton, a fairly common, human mistake made by every very good people - meaning, I think, to some degree, unless there is some other more serious issue involved, this is a far too unrealistic and perfectionistic standard to hold average and even very good people to that is done when we don't give a shit about what is realistic or decent to others and just abstract and self-righteous notions of good that are both meant to validate our own sense of self-righteous perfectionism and to validate why our dickishness is really because what good people we are trying to uphold standards of decency and law in a society that would crumble if we weren't such pricks.
Meaning, the underlying political nature of this case is a lot of pricks in established political circles all patting themselves on the back on how their prickishness really makes the world a better place, even as it has experienced such dramatic failures in Iraq, with Iran, and elsewhere.
And I just have no patience or tolerance for that bullshit and all of the self-deception and self-validation for being a self-congratulating asshole that is involved with that kind of rationalization.
This case is about people trying to make heads roll for this war and this Administration. Even if Lewis Libby was not responsible for going to war. And even if many of the very people involved in the head-rolling are much more responsible for the the push to go to war since they much more publicly advocated that move than did Lewis Libby. And it is also about validating that what this country has really needed, not just on Iraq but for everything, is for assholes like them to really make heads roll. They're just trying to keep the world safe. They're not self-righteous, self-congratulating bullies who simultaneously want forgiveness for their own advocacy for the war and who want heads to roll for the President's advocacy of that war and for his and Vice President Cheney's and Lewis Libby's presumed efforts to get revenge on their detractors. The current political era is a function of people who know what is right and wrong and are insistent that bad actors get their due, not self-righteous bullies validating their desire and persistent insistence on getting and forcing their way on whatever issue tickles their fancy. They are defenders of the law. And how dare anyone suggest otherwise.
This prosecution was political. Not just because Democrats and liberals were the chorus of folks in the press and in the blogosphere and in the discussion to take someone, anyone, down for this and the whole mess in Iraq. It was political because it validated everyone's sense that it was the Bush Administration's version of bullying that was problematic, not the bullying, itself.
Ties in those cases and in all cases of prosecution, I believe and presumption of innocence seems to imply, should go to the runner. Meaning, we should presume that people should be free, if we're not sure. And if the case involves flawed humanity that doesn't immediately hurt anyone directly or intentionally, I believe.
I just think it's worthless to go after people for the sake of going after people. And as a teacher who sees kids act poorly every single day of my life and having some experience with the criminal justice system, I'm completely convinced that the only thing that makes a difference in peoples' behavior, for real, is conscience. And in the cases of Lewis Libby and Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger (who I did not want to see prosecuted, either, even though I think he, too, looks like he was likely guilty of a relatively minor crime), you had three people who were committing crimes to avoid punishment elsewhere. In the courtroom, for Libby, in the court of public opinion and in the case for disbarment for Bill Clinton, and at the ballot box and public opinion polls, for Berger protecting President Clinton.
The truth is that this period - the Iraq war, the Libby trial, and the deeply hateful and polarizing partisanship and tough action that has characterized every political discussion of this period- has completely sapped my trust of partisans or established political folks persisently defending their own behavior and advocacy and persistently looking to take down their opponents and any arguments meant to advance a larger cause without genuine responsibility to a humbler and wiser view of human nature and reality which seeks to constructively lift up humanity and resolve serious conflicts rather than out of a hunger for power or some arrogant notion that any person, any group, any ideology, any party, any leader, anyone knows best with any kind of finality or final authority or infallibility.
There is no such thing as infallible judgment. And one of lifes' most profound tragedies is that the very people who are most convinced of the infallibility of their judgment are those most ready and willing to impose it on others and sacrafice others to their cause. The 20th century was littered with so many of such leaders sacraficing millions to their cause. The 21st century, sadly, seems poised to repeat that mistake. History repeating itself, as Marx might say, first as tragedy, then as farce.
I don't trust such people to be leaders, is the truth. And noone should, in reality. Because you will always be the person you never suspected who will be sacraficed to their cause next. I've learned this from experience, having liberals sacrafice me and my well-being numerous times when my thinking did not conform to the party line, from my liberal advocacy days until now.
The truth is that the kind of partisanship that we are witnessing today is exactly why the leadership and example of so many political leaders, journalists, activists, and even scholars and ordinary folks who follow politics should not be trusted, and certainly not trusted as worthy enough to presume to know how to run or to determine the outcome of peoples' lives. That, as much as any other reason, is why liberal democracies do, more, and should, as much as possible, presume in favor of respecting peoples' freedom and ability to self-determine their lives, rather than presume that any of the ambitious, often arrogant, and generally power-hungry folks involved in the current political dramas of the day would know best how they should run their lives.
And yet we always seek out a religious or political or intellectual messiah who will finally save us from all this free will we experience in our lives and use and abuse, no matter how many ways we try to contain that very real and staying fact of life, no matter how many rules we put in place and no matter how strictly we enforce them. We use and abuse it to learn from it, largely. And in the bigger picture, we do learn from it, when we aren't making excuses for our failures, as is the mainstay of the current political era. As individuals and as a culture, we generally learn from our failures. That is how we've made the advances we have made today that have led us to more freedom, and stronger liberal democratic institutions and values. And learning to trust that direction for our forward movement is one of the most important lessons that we are learning, right now.
The truth is that there is no leader, no prosecutor, no journalist, no scholar, no activist, no real or mythical mother or father, no religious messiah who has the infallible judgment and advice and wisdom that we seek. Which is why we must learn to determine our lives better ourselves rather than always look to some central governing body to organize it for us.
And all of our efforts to have some leader, some governing body, some group, some idea, someone or thing to finally govern all of us and standardize all of our behavior have always resulted in what we are witnessing today: hubris. The arrogance of power and the notion that it can once and for all resolve our most pressing problems and needs.
There is no such thing as infallible judgment, anywhere. And its absence is all the more reason to presume that people should have their lives governed best by their own self-direction and self-determination and freedom and as least as possible from distant powerful persons or forces.
And the fact that Scooter Libby's conviction is still being debated, as well as the 2000 election, and ideological purity and superiority, should be the clearest evidence that no power, no authority, no ideological orientation will ever resolve any question with finality, ever. Which should humble our faith in any of those means of trying to resolve such questions and turn to the one place where issues do find some humbler and more authentic resolution: in our own consciences and engagement and learning and intelligent reflection.
And the saddest fact of this period is how, at every turn when people involved should have been and should be turning to honest, engaged, open-minded and open-hearted, and thoughtful reflection, discussion, learning, and disagreement, with an eye to choices and resolutions of least hubris and claims on final rendering, we have persisently, instead, turned to maximum power and force and ideological bitterness and self-righteousness as the poorest substitute possible.
In the cases of Lewis Libby and Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger, and, at this point, virtually every important political matter, the various partisans have seen these dramas through the lenses of their ideological animus and their self-righteous claims on final understanding and loyalty to their friends and animosity towards their opponents.
And none of it serves anyone in any deepest sense.
Something tells me that this is not the best that we can do. This is not our highest humanity. And I think I understand much better, today, why the most liberally democratic minded writers that I read in high school and college and graduate school always referred to such nebulous concepts as our "highest humanity." Because the truth is that we can wallow in our basest and lowest impulses as long as we like. We can cloak them in the law, in power, in authority, and in virtually any institution we desire. The Nazi regime did this very thing in almost every institution in German society, as did Communists in Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea and around the world. The law and political authority above all else, for everyone who is romanticizing the law as some final value of a liberal society during these times, is the hiding place for our cowardice and basest impulses.
As sad as it is, ultimately, for humanity, if we choose destructive and self-destructive and dysfunctional means of dealing with one another and our shared and independent problems, there really is nothing to stop us, since the law and political authority are generally rationalized as a part of those destructive and self-destructive choices. Genocide, sectarianism, repression, apartheid, slavery, and other vices of power are regularly rationalized in the name of law and political authority.
Our highest humanity is available to us when we choose to leave behind such legacies, tragically long after they have done their worst.
This period is not our highest humanity. That can only be a plain fact for anyone with any sense of hope, at all, for our future beyond humanity's periodic tumbles. We would have to be blind to look at how we are conducting ourselves today and say this is what our highest values have to offer us. Or hopeless.
Naziism and Communism were and are outgrowths of that kind of hopeless cynicism, I can see more clearly today as I watch it parade as the best that liberal democracy has to offer.
Our most important question at the beginning of the 21st century is are we going to let that tragic legacy persist for another generation and another century? Or are we going to more fully embrace our highest and strongest liberal democratic values?
Hubris persisently haunts humanity's history and present. And yet we limp and march forward. Sometimes too confidently. At times too timidly. Perhaps one day in a way that fully embraces everything that is best and worst in us, and chooses, over time, as individuals and as societies, to do better, despite our worst and out of a commitment to what can be best in all of us, given a genuine commitment from our free will to do so.
Perhaps by learning to embrace our worst instincts, we can learn, better to distinguish them from our best and to choose better as we learn to more honestly face ourselves and give each other greater space to face one another without fear of attack or retribution or other sources of fear that undermine our mutual trust and bonding and more genuine mutual responsibility.
For now, we use our fallible judgments and falllible institutions to yield the most good possible while we build better ones.
And the most important institution that we build in liberal democratic societies is the institution of the individual. Educated and self-governing, independent with an eye to genuine interdependence, which can only truly transpire with respect for her or his independence, confident and with eyes wide open in a world of uncertainty and far too much fear for us to continue to contribute more of it and have it continue to be so counterproductive to our aspirations, for ourselves and for one another.
Absent these kinds of aspirations, we can always count on our more power-hungry, hateful and less thoughtful, ideologically-tinged and motivated activities and institutions even in liberal democratic societies to be perpetually sprinkled with illegitimacy, lacking real public trust and credibility. They will sadly deserve that tinge, as it is and will be clear and apparent to everyone that they fail to live up to those highest aspirations, so lost are they and we living down to our basest impulses as it concerns power and one another.
We can avoid that. But it will mean being bigger. When much of the world is rationalizing being smaller.
Either way, we will live with the institutions, the governments, and the worlds that we choose.
May we choose wisely.
Love,
Ben
