Needlenose

This morning, former White House spokesliar Scott McClellan is due to testify to the House Judiciary Committee. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal offered a preview:

At a hearing Friday before the House Judiciary Committee, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will get a chance to reprise some of the charges he made in his recently published book and in subsequent media interviews.

The hearings will also give Democrats an opportunity to dig back into the scandal over the outing of former Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame.

. . . Â Michigan Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, explained his reason for this week’s McClellan hearing this way: “In his book, Mr. McClellan suggests that senior White House officials may have obstructed justice and engaged in a cover-up regarding the Valerie Plame leak. This alleged activity could well extend beyond the scope of the offenses for which Scooter Libby has been convicted and deserves further attention.”

Although I wish Rep. Conyers luck in finding proof of criminal conduct, I’m not optimistic (and that’s even assuming the Shrub-in-Chief doesn’t pull some executive-privilege shenanigans to block McClellan’s testimony). Â As I’ve mused on occasion in the past, it seems to be ingrained in the liberal mindset to seek some kind of legal/procedural redress for the Bush-Cheney administration’s misdeeds, when they might be better off making the simpler political case regarding their lack of a moral compass. Â

The speed with the guilty pleas and forced resignation of the Nixon regime were followed by Ronald Reagan’s misrule, with only a one-term Democratic president in between — and the failure of the Iran/Contra lawbreaking to produce even that much — should make it clear that the ultimate remedy for the GOP’s gangster approach to government isn’t impeachment or prosecution; it’s convincing the American public not to elect Republicans in the first place. Â Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves fighting the same uphill battles to impeach or indict the fuckers every 8 or 12 years.

With that in mind, I think that rather than try to create the grounds for reviving special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, the Dems on the House Judiciary Committee should use my favorite overlooked revelation from last year’s Libby trial to shed light on the Bushites’ moral bankruptcy.

McClellan’s primary involvement in the Plame leak was during the reaction to the Washington Post’s “1 by 2 by 6″ story on Sept. 28, 2003 (“a senior administration official said that before Novak’s column ran,  two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife”).  A follow-up story by the Post’s Mike Allen the next day was even more specific about the circumstances (“the two White House officials had cold-called at least six Washington journalists and identified Wilson’s wife”)

Strangely, no one (save for this humble blog, as longtime readers know) has attempted to nail down the exact leakers/leaking referred to by this story. Â But this section of Ari Fleischer’s trial testimony discussing events during the week of the Plame leaks seems to be a very obvious clue:

Q … Is it a fact, Mr. Fleischer, that you and Dan Bartlett, on July the 12th on the plane headed back from Africa, agreed to contact several print and television media journalists?
A Â That’s my recollection, yes.
Q  And did you decide that you would contact the New York Times and The Washington Post?
A Â That’s my recollection.
Q Â And Mr. Bartlett would contact the Sunday talk shows?
A Â I don’t recall who Mr. Bartlett contacted. [...]
Q Â … When you called [...] somebody at The Washington Post as well, that was Walter Pincus?
A Â Correct.

Pincus, of course, was leaked to about Plame in that conversation, although Fleischer claimed not to recall it. Â It seems very clear that if Pincus got what he describes as an unsolicited leak, the other reporters Fleischer/Bartlett called on July 12 did, too — and if someone on Air Force One (say, Colin Powell) overheard and went to the Post, there’s your 1x2x6 story.

So the questions to McClellan would be, after running down the evidence above:

Presumably, Scottie will say no to both questions. Â Having already hinted at a White House oddly uninterested in getting to the bottom of a leak of classified information, Democrats can then allude to McClellan’s/Bush’s statements at the time of not being able to track down anonymous “senior officials” and bring out the clincher:

“Let’s say the President had a senior staff meeting… he could have asked the Vice President if he knew anything, and the answer would have been yes. Â He could have asked the Vice President’s chief of staff [Libby]. Â He could have asked his top political adviser [Karl Rove]. Â He could have asked his communications director [Bartlett]. Â He could have asked his Secretary of State [Powell, to whom his deputy, Richard Armitage, had admitted talking to Robert Novak]….”

The point being that Bush was literally surrounded by people who leaked about Plame or knew about the leaking — but never showed the least bit of curiosity, because he was more interested in not getting caught than in finding the truth.  That’s the way Republican presidents operate, and that’s what I hope McClellan’s Democratic questioners in the House try to establish in today’s hearing.

Stumble it!

Tags: hearings, McClellan, Plamemania

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 3:27 am by Swopa and is filed under Plamemania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.