Truth, Justice and the American Way

means a whole different thing these days.

Guilty plea the best news exhausted father could get

The most (to me) telling sentence in this pieces is

'Mr Hicks would only say that his son felt a guilty plea was the only way "he's going to get out".'

So his presumed guilt is tossed aside, by both sides it seems, to make way for expediency. The only way he felt he could escape torture was to plead guilty (and this presumes that he isn't guilty).

So this old phrase becomes

"Truth", "Justice" and the American Way

Rot in hell

We've all heard what a great guy "Scooter" Libby is (what kind of a guy goes by a name an eight year old would desperately try to shun? how does he hope to be taken seriously?). How he didn't mean to leak the name of an undercover CIA operative. How it was because he had so many important things on his mind that this one little fact may have escaped him, leading him to change his story about it.

Bullsh!t

It was classified information. If you can't handle it properly, you should lose your security clearance. If that means you lose your job, oh well, maybe you were the wrong man for the job in the first place.

Unmasked CIA officer gets her 'Garbo speaks' moment
Plame to Tell Her Story Before Congress

But now I think I've changed my mind. Libby should rot in hell, as should Rove and Cheney.

Unnamed CIA sources indicating in a general way (since it's still classified) that she was what was called a NOC ("non official cover"). Meaning that she wasn't a pretend state department employee or some other government official who we could claim back and rescue if caught. She worked as a real spy, under cover with the fake identity and everything. If her cover was blown then the government couldn't admit she worked for us and come and get her. And while she may not have been deployed overseas when they blew her cover, they did ruin her career because she had been back and forth all the time and was an undercover operative whose life they put at risk.

So it sounds like it was a breach of national security and I hope and pray that their civil suit leads to convictions. We won't ever know if Libby, Rove and Cheney will rot in hell but I like to think they will. If not for a multitude of other sins then surely for this.

Just how many

Examples of the pot calling the kettle black do we really need?

Newt Gingrich Admits To Having Affair While Leading Clinton Probe

And here enters in that fine line again. Clinton wasn't on trial for having an affair, he was on trial for lying to the grand jury and/or congress about it while under oath. Libby wasn't convicted of release a covert CIA operative's name, he was found guilty of lying about it.

They seem to trip up when they raise their hand and do that whole "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God."

D'oh