Justice, American Style
That's politics for you. Lying to a grand jury or stealing classified documents is no big deal as long as you have that all-important D after your name, but God help you if you have the temerity to do something like that as a Republican. So I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby discovered this past week when he was convicted of lying to a grand jury about his role in the infamous Plame Affair.
I have little sympathy for Mr. Libby. Republicans were once expected to be the party that placed national security above partisan politics, though that reputation was doubtless markedly overstated, to be charitable. It seems pretty clear that no laws were broken in revealing that Valerie Plame was the reason Joe Wilson made his tea-drinking trip to Niger, but despite that, Plame's decision to involve herself in partisan politics did not make it appropriate for the White House to expose her, because her work as a covert operative could well be damaged even if she hasn't been covert for years. Spies are often discovered by making connections, and anyone Plame recruited became an obvious target for their nation's counterintelligence agencies once her identity was broached. The White House was wrong to do what they did, and they deserved to get clobbered in the media and at the polls for it. But listening to people who cheer when classified information is leaked that damages the administration suddenly discover a concern for national security when that too could hurt the administration was a bit difficult to stomach, and I confess I was somewhat concerned that a lot of leftists may have hurt themselves performing such a sharp turnaround.
Where was this concern when Sandy Berger decided to sneak classified documents out of the National Archives and then destroy them? He got off with a fine, a slap on the wrist, having ensured that any history of the Clinton administration now will be missing who-knows-what data about their anti-terrorism efforts. I do not subscribe to the theory that Berger was destroying information that would have been harmful to the Clinton administration, but his actions have ensured that we will never know for sure. Was his crime worse than Libby's? What harm accrued because Libby lied to a grand jury about a matter in which no crime was committed? I seem to recall a lot of people complaining about President Clinton's impeachment over perjury; after all, he only lied about sex, right? Of course, his lies were arguably more self-serving than Libby's, as Clinton would eventually settled Paula Jones' lawsuit to the tune of $850,000 (and it is not hard to visualize how differently that entire episode would have played out had Clinton borne the scarlet 'R').
We have come to a time in our history where there are two separate systems of justice, one for Democrats and one for Republicans. (OK, really there's four: Democrats, Republicans, rich people and the rest of us. Guess where most convictions come from.) It seems not too much of a stretch to suggest that this might be a bad thing. President Bush and his administration have already demonstrated the lengths they are willing to go in order to try and cement their hold on power. How much further might Democrats be willing to go when they can rest easy with the knowledge they won't even have to fear serious prosecution?