McClellan Proves The Need For The Odd Press Secretary Model

Scott McClellan, former presidential press secretary turned turncoat with the publication of his memoir, has quite a publicity storm around him this morning. Here are the links under the lead McClellan story this morning on memorandum:

The Swamp, Attackerman, Newshoggers.com, The Corner, MSNBC, Too Sense, Daily Kos, Political Machine, Discourse.net, Outside The Beltway, On Deadline, Redstate, Brilliant at Breakfast, Informed Comment, Hot Air, Don Surber, THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL™, Emptywheel, Washington Monthly, Pam's House Blend, Facing South, David Corn, The Raw Story, Jules Crittenden, I Am TRex, Crooks and Liars, Romenesko, The Moderate Voice, Donklephant, Oliver Willis, The Reaction, Political Byline, The Washington Note, First Draft, Liberal Values, KIKO'S HOUSE, Connecting.the.Dots, Alternate Brain, Salon, The Art of the Possible, RADAMISTO, Macsmind, Political Punch, Rising Hegemon and Taegan Goddard's …

You can certainly read them, but they boil down to this: Everyone on the left says McClellan vindicates everything they believe about President Bush, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby; everyone on the right says he's a cheap sell-out. That's not what I'm writing about, per se.

Rather, I'm writing about McClellan's job. Not his job performance, which Seth Liebsohn nails down pretty well at The Corner, but his job.

In many ways, it's like my job. I am often the public spokesperson on a project, but my job is different from McClellan's old gig in that I don't allow myself to be kept in the dark so that my comments can be limited and my deniability can be plausible. I believe the role of the communications consultant is to understand all the facts and work with the client team to determine how best to present them, both immediately and over time.

Of course, the job of White House Press Secretary also is not at all like my job. There's much more interest in his client; there are many, many more stories; the press is never avoidable, and most importantly, the stakes are exponentially higher. That's why the typical and tested White House model is to have a senior circle -- consider it too simply as President Bush and Rove -- and an junior circle that is briefed fully enough to communicate what the senior circle decides.

Would I take such a job, one that sets me up to periodically be a fog machine on the truth? I certainly wouldn't in the private sector, or for any government position short of a national security position like McClellan's. To take a press secretary job at the White House, CIA, State or Pentagon means that you understand your role as a distributor of designer information. And that means that after you leave, you don't write a book complaining that you may have misled the media. Of course you misled the media.

McClellan did more than attack Bush; he attacked the position of White House Press Secretary, making it unlikely the Press Secretary will ever be admitted into the Senior Circle, for good reason. And in the process, he underscored the unseemly character of his work.

One of the major blabs in McClellan's book has to do with the Plame Game, and the actions of Rove and Libby. Off limits. National security. McClellan can point to the legal battles and the Leftist lingo, but as a former White House official, he should see this matter is now tied up in the war debate, and since the administration is in office and the war is still going on, there is nothing at all that he should say about it.

His writing on Katrina has nothing to do with national security, but he still shouldn't be writing it because he accepted a job that entailed an understanding of his position not just while he was on the payroll, but after -- again, at least as long as the current administration is in office.

His is the worst kind of sell-out. We gather no new information from him because he is a junior level guy who (by smart design, it turns out) wasn't in the information loop at the senior levels. So we read his opinion about how the administration blundered in handling the war. McClellan has no meaningful perspective to offer there because he was on the tail end of the info-trian.

And we read that he thought the picture of Bush surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One was a bad idea, but he was overruled. Interesting and correct -- but if the price we have to pay for it is having him undercut the administration for 30 pieces of silver ... well, let's just say that McClellan illustrates the necessity of the senior tier/junior tier model.

Plame Game Petering Out?

Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and other bogeymen has been tossed by a federal judge on jurisdictional grounds, a legal term that means, "You've been trying to create a scandal here for a couple years now and you've still got nothing, nothing, nothing. Go away."

You can read the story here, but the gist of it is this: Plame was trying to get get courts to award her damages because the leak had made her fabulously famous and wealthy. She also accused Cheney and Libby of leaking, when everyone knows it was Richard Armitage. But so what? Cheney and Libby deserve to be hauled into court because they're ... they're ... they're ... Cheney and Libby for cryin' out loud!

Fringe Dems have held onto the Plame Game until their knuckles have atrophied because it's all they've got. There's been Cunningham and Abramoff, for sure, but no scandals have touched the White House in six long years of their pushing, prodding and probing. Plame was all they had, and now, she's hanging onto a fingernail, a breath away from falling into the utter insignificance she deserves.

Not that it will make any difference to the Fringe. They will continue to hold her up as the High Priestess of Bush Hatred Syndrome, and no facts will ever diminish her pulsing, pea-green, paranoid glow.

"Libby Motion" For Convicted Terrorist Bankroller

President Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby was, at one level, an end-run around controversial federal sentencing guidelines. Defense lawyers, being who they are, didn't take long to recognize an opening -- and it looks like the first time it's tried will bring even more irony to the already irony-clad Libby case:

The New York Sun reports this morning that an alleged Hamas operative is likely to be among the first criminal defendants to try to capitalize on President Bush’s commutation. Mohammed Salah, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge in Chicago next week on one count of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors are seeking 22 years under the federal sentencing guidelines.

Said Salah’s lawyer Michael Deutsch, who’s seeking a sentence of probation: “What the president said about Mr. Libby applies in spades to the case of Mohammed Salah.We’ll definitely be bringing it up to the judge. It’s going to be a real test, a first early test of whether we’re a nation of laws or a nation of men.” (WSJ Law Blog)

I fail to see anything in Salah's case about dedicated service to the U.S. government; instead I see a man who gave money to Hamas. I don't think Salah deserves 22 years, but that's more a comment on the problems with the federal sentencing guidelines than it is about Salah's case.

It would be a shame to use Libby to get probation for a funder of a terrorist organization. The courts need to give better direction on the guidelines or overturn them so we can start over -- if they don't, we'll see a slew of very bad "Libby motions."

Hillary's Grand, Failed Cover-Up

Hillary, shown here covering up with her Hubby, should keep her mouth shut, Incredible Wife tells me. But she didn't; she couldn't resist joining the hypocritical Dem chorus and put in her two bits on the Scooter Libby pardon, telling an AP reporter in a phone interview:

"I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it. This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent." ...

Her husband's pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said.

"This particular action by the president is one more piece of evidence in their ongoing disregard for the rule of law that they think they don't have to answer to," she said.

There are so many holes in that argument -- like how not accurately remembering what was said to an investigator who already had the facts constitutes stifling dissent -- that you'd think a good captain would steer clear of it. Nevertheless, The Captain did indeed comment, and his comments are typical of the reaction from the right side of the blogosphere, including C-SM:

Oh, please. ... How about the [pardon] granted to financier Marc Rich -- ironically, represented by none other than Scooter Libby -- after his wife donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library? That certainly sounds like a bit of legacy building to me.

Yes, it does sound like legacy-building, but could it be that Hillary really has a point here? Were her husband's pardons different from Bush's? Well, there sure were more of them, I learned as I scanned the list of 397 -- that's three hundred and ninety seven -- Clinton pardons you can find here, including the infamous 141 pardons on his final day in office.

Clinton got an early jump on pardoning, starting in January of 1996 and not all these crimes were exactly current -- he pardoned Henry Ossian Flipper of his 1891 conviction for conduct unbecoming an officer.

Scrolling through the list, you begin to think that Hillary's right. Most who received pardons look like Bill's kind of guys -- real scumbags -- but by the dozens, they're not people who could harm Bill's legacy.

There's his first pardon, to Phillip David Aroenshon, who failed to pay taxes on gambling wins. And Jimmy Dick, who counterfeited some bills. And Jackie Lee Miller, who conspired to defraud the United States.

There are dozens of folks who made false statements to banks, embezzled from banks and conspired to defraud banks, folks who probably tugged on Bill's heartstrings, given his Whitewater experience.

He even pardoned Theodore Roosevelt. That's Theodore Roosevelt Noel, who sold whiskey in unstamped containers. And in a hat-tip to his Hollywood friends, he pardoned Thelma and Louise ... er, Thelma Louise Wingate, who conned a bunch of innocent folks through mail fraud.

If Hil wanted to really show how unconcerned Bill was about matters political, about his legacy, she could point to his pardon of Philip D. Winn, who was found guilty of conspiring to give illegal gratuities, i.e., bribery.

Winn was hardly a Dem operative: Chairman, Colorado Republican Party, 1979-81. Member, National Republican Senatorial Committee, 1984-88. Colorado Chairman for the Reagan-Bush Outreach for Blacks, Hispanics and Jews, 1984. Delegate, 1984 Republican National Convention. Colorado gubernatorial candidate, 1982.

He pled guilty to bribery in 1994 and was pardoned in 2000. His NNDB bio notes that he was caught up in a HUD scandal. A HUD scandal?

Wasn't Clinton's HUD Secretary, Henry Cisneros, caught up in a HUD scandal? Wasn't he convicted of basically the same offense as that fellow Scooter Libby? Yes, pretty much: False statements, 1991. Pardoned, January 20, 2001, in Clinton's last-day Pardon Spree.

To refresh your memory, Cisneros had a gal on the side and lied about it to the FBI agents doing his background check. Hmmm. Lying to a federal agent ... that's sort of like lying to a prosecutor, isn't it? The agents had asked him about payments that he'd made to former squeeze Linda Medlar, aka Linda Jones, and his answer netted him an indictment on 18 counts of conspiracy, giving false statements and obstruction of Justice.

He copped a plea to a misdemeanor, but that didn't stop the investigation of other possible crimes by Clinton's infamous co-skirt-chaser. In all, $21 million of your tax dollars was spent chasing Cisneros, who served no jail time, no probation, and got a pardon, to boot.

Medlar a.k.a. Jones was a peach, too. She used part of the money she got from Cisneros as hush money and invested much of the rest of it in scams of what sort or another. The result: conviction on conspiracy to commit bank fraud, to make a false statement to a bank, to launder monetary instruments, and to engage in monetary transactions in property derived from specific unlawful activity; aiding and abetting bank fraud; aiding and abetting false statements to a bank; aiding and abetting laundering monetary instruments; aiding and abetting engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specific unlawful activity; obstruction of justice; falsifying, concealing and covering up a material fact by trick, scheme, or device; and making a false statement.

Her fate? Pardoned on Clinton's last day in office.

Also pardoned that day:

• Susan McDougal, Whitewater co-conspirator, of charges of mail fraud; aiding and abetting in misapplication of Small Business Investment Corporation funds, and aiding and abetting in making false entries.
  
  
• Stephen A. Smith, another Whitewater figure, lying to the SBA
  
  
• On the national security front, of course there's John Deutch, Clinton's Sec of Defence and CIA chief. In Sandy Berger style, classified materials left the CIA with Deutch, the matter was never fully investigated, and Janet Reno declined to prosecute. Even though he wasn't prosecuted, Clinton pardoned Deutch on the charges. Can you say "cover up?"
  

And then, of course, there was the pardon of prez sibling Roger Clinton on conspiracy to distribute cocaine and distribution of cocaine.

And the pardon of Dan Rostenkowski, the powerful Ways and Means chair caught up in the Congressional Post Office scandal and also charged with keeping "ghost" employees on his payroll, using Congressional funds to buy gifts for friends.

But, Hil assures us, none of Clinton's pardons were aimed at protecting the Clinton legacy or his presidency -- sure, because most were on the last day of the presidency, in a classic "what the definition of 'is' is" Clintonism.

Uh-huh. Like Incredible Wife says, Hillary should keep her mouth shut.

Scooter Walks

To Chuck Schumer, who had this to say about the President's pardon of Scooter Libby ...

"As Independence Day nears, we are reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. This commutation completely tramples on that principle,"

... I have two words.

To Nancy Pelosi, who had this to say ...

"The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people,"

... I have two words.

And most of all, to the lying, conniving Joe Wilson, who brought on this entire matter by his dishonest effort to undercut his boss, the president of the United States, who had this to say ...

"I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby," Wilson said. "I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor."

... I have two words.

Marc Rich.

Bush's pardon was principled, freeing a man who had been far too harshly sentenced, but leaving the probation and fine in effect because there is merit in respecting the jury system.

Clinton's pardon of Rich was utterly unprincipled, a thank you for political payola he had received from Rich's wife; money that was not hers to give; money that was scammed from others.

And, lest we forget one of the sweetest ironies in all this nation's political history, my two words are particularly tantalizing in this case because Rich's attorney for 15 years was ... Scooter Libby.

Why Did A Bush Judge Over-Sentence Libby?

I expected U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, the guy who sentenced Scooter Libby to 30 months, to have a vitae fit for a particularly outraged C-SM post. But check it out:

Judge Reggie B. Walton assumed his position as a United States District Judge for the District of Columbia on October 29, 2001, after being nominated to the position by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. In May 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Walton to serve as a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is a 7-year appointment. Judge Walton was also appointed by President Bush in June of 2004 to serve as the Chairperson of the National Prison Rape Reduction Commission, a two-year commission created by the United States Congress that is tasked with the mission of identifying methods to curb the incidents of prison rape. Former Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Walton to the federal judiciary's Criminal Law Committee, effective October 1, 2005. Judge Walton previously served as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 1981 to 1989 and 1991 to 2001, having been appointed to that position by Presidents Ronald Reagan in 1981 and George H. W. Bush in 1991. While serving on the Superior Court, Judge Walton was the court's Presiding Judge of the Family Division, Presiding Judge of the Domestic Violence Unit and Deputy Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division. Between 1989 and 1991, Judge Walton served as President George H. W. Bush's Associate Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Executive Office of the President and as President Bush's Senior White House Advisor for Crime. (emphasis added)

No ready cheap shots there; here's a judge who's career has been in close orbit with GOP presidents since 1981. Had he been a Clinton appointee ... or worse, a Carter man ... today's sentence could have been passed off more easily.

But it's much more complex. To get the sentence, Patrick Fitzgerald had to do one thing and hope for another.

First, after getting Libby's conviction by arguing endlessly that it didn't matter whether Plame was a covert agent or not because that wasn't what Libby was charged with, he revealed that Plame was, in fact, covert for about a year and a half.

That allowed him to argue under federal sentencing guidelines that the underlying offense -- the outing of a CIA agent, a charge Libby was not charged with -- was so heinous that a severe sentence was warranted. In the words of Time reporter Reynolds Holding,

To get a sense of the absurdity of this, think of someone found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt — the highest level of proof — of dealing 20 grams of cocaine, and the judge saying, hey, there's evidence that you dealt 10 times that amount, so you get an extra eight years.

Then, Fitzgerald had to hope Walton would choose to use the federal sentencing guidelines. He didn't have to; after all, the Supremes had made them discretionary in a Jan. 2005 decision.

Holding says the inside line on the sentencing was that Walton would opt not to use the guidelines. The Left felt so because of Walton's Bush-centric career, the Right out of sheer disgust at the outrageous behavior of Fitzgerald.

Walton proved both sides wrong. Why?

Perhaps it was a conservative's expression of impatience with Bush's squandering of GOP solidarity. Perhaps it was a federal judge's way of firing a shot across the noses of future leakers.

Whatever it was, Scooter's unfortunate life just got unfortunate-r.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

Another Partisan Hack For Bush To Fire

Before the pavement cools from the fast tracks of the departing federal attorneys, President Bush should shove one more federal employee out the door: CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.

Hayden has showed himself to be a political hack; a Dem political hack.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra has asked Hayden and the CIA repeatedly during the Plame Game whether Valery Plame was a covert agent, and only got the run-around. As recently as today, Hayden was unresponsive on the matter, according to Robert Novak. That's odd, because Hayden was happy to tell the Dems that Plame's status was covert.

Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard last Friday on television as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.

Even after reviewing and approving Waxman's statement that Plame was covert, Hayden continued to stiff-arm Hoekstra's querries. So he's a political hack unworthy of the position he holds.

Because nearly alll GOP reps boycotted the hearing, which they correctlyl viewed as too partisan, no one asked what Hayden was up to. Also not asked were these questions posed by Novak:

• Had not Plame been outed years ago by a Soviet agent?
  
  
• Was she not on an administrative, not operational, track at Langley?
  
  
• How could she be covert if, in public view, she drove to work each day at Langley?
  
  
• What about comments to me by then CIA spokesman Bill Harlow that Plame never would be given another foreign assignment?
  
  
• What about testimony to the FBI that her CIA employment was common knowledge in Washington?

Good questions; the kind of questions that should be asked at a Congressional hearing. Too bad the opportunity was missed.

Hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

Today's Must-Read: The Scummy Mr. Wilson

Now that Val's sprinkled her glitter over the House hearing room, it's time to remind ourselves just how political and untrustworthy Plame and her husband Joe Wilson are.

You'll get it in this illuminating dissection of the Plame Game at Sweetness & Light. Takeaway graf:

Given the chronology and Mr. Armitage’s remarks, it seems quite obvious Mr. Wilson outed his wife when he spoke to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and then to the subsequent reporters at the Times, the Post and elsewhere, when he was hawking his story about his trip to Niger.

It also seems quite obvious that Wilson signed onto John Kerry's campaign at the same SDPC meeting. After all, Kerry is quite intrigued by intrigue: He still has the CIA hat he got on Christmas in Cambodia.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Waxman Holds His Glitter Investigation

How often does a news article about a supposedly serious Congressional investigation start of with a lead like this?

Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats' criticism of the Bush administration Friday...

The AP story is accompanied by not one, not two but SIX pictures of Plame! The Washington press core is ga-ga over this broad ... not just because she's blonde, but because she and her lying husband Joe Wilson have been a major pain in the pazoot from Mssrs. Bush, Cheney and Rove.

It turns out Plame is as adept at lying as Yellowcake Joe:

Plame said she did not select her husband for a CIA fact-finding trip to Niger. ...

"I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I did not have the authority," she said.

Too bad her sworn testimony runs counter to the sworn testimony of senior officials at the CIA and State Department. Were there shouts of "Perjury!" ringing through the chamber when she said that? Apparently not; everyone was transfixed by this blonde Mata Hari Cheney-baiter.

Friday's hearing showed the intense interest in Plame, who drew autograph-seekers and camera-toting congressional aides to a hearing on an otherwise quiet morning.

Even a member of Congress confessed to being a bit star-struck.

"If I seem a little nervous, I've never questioned a spy before," Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga. said. "I was here during the steroid hearings, too, and I don't think any of those baseball stars got this kind of media attention that you're getting today."

Like all things Dem since they took the majority, nothing came from this hearing. Other than Plame's lie, no new information has hit the record. No one from the White House or State (where the leak actually occurred) that was actually involved in any way in the leak is on Waxman's witness list.

Waxman knows there's nothing left on the table after Patrick Fitzgerald's lengthy and robust crumb-analysis. But he also knows it's easier to focus on scandals of no consequence than to ask serious questions like, "What do the Islamafascists want to do to us, and why is the Democratic Party aiding and abetting them in that effort?"

Fitzgerald Justifies His Existence (Barely): Libby Convicted

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald just did what is so common with special prosecutors: He saw his grand investigation get whittled down to a scrawny, questionable case and by applying every dollar given to him by the American taxpayers, eeked out a conviction, thereby justifying the next special prosecutor to come along.

Here's the scoop:

WASHINGTON (AP) Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room.

The verdict was read on the 10th day of deliberations. Libby faces up to 30 years in prison, though under federal sentencing guidelines likely will receive far less.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered a pre-sentencing report be completed by May 15. Judges use such reports to help determine sentences.

Libby faced two counts of perjury, two counts of lying to the FBI and one count of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said he discussed Plame's name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

Libby's defense team said he learned about Plame from Cheney, forgot about it, then learned it again a month later from NBC newsman Tim Russert. Anything he told reporters about Plame, Libby said, was just chatter and rumors, not official government information.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that was a lie. But Libby's defense team had argued that it would be unfair to convict Libby in a case where so many witnesses changed their stories or had memory problems.

No Cheney, no Bush, no vast right-wing conspiracy; just a needless debate over lying versus memory loss.

Not answered are the more significant questions: The MSM's role in playing up this affair, what really happened on Joe Clark's yellowcake mission and what that tells us about Africa's willingness to provide terrorists with uranium, and why Plame was successful in pushing her husband for the gig inthe first place.

It's not over yet, as a motion for a new trial is forthcoming, and certainly appeals will follow that.

What an absolute waste of money, and what a waste of Scooter Libby's life.

Quote Of The Day: Scooter Scooting? Edition

“We would like clarification of the term ‘reasonable doubt. Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?”
-- Note to judge from Libby jury

Asking for clarification of "reasonable doubt" is not too far removed from asking for clarification that God created the universe. The courts have struggled with a definition since the inception of the concept, as is evidenced from the NYT's report on Judge Reggie Walton's instructions to the Libby jury:

In his instructions to the Libby jury, Judge Walton said, “A reasonable doubt, as the name implies, is a doubt based on reason.”

He also said that “if after careful, honest and impartial consideration of all the evidence, you cannot say that you are firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt, then you have a reasonable doubt.”

He also noted, however, that “the government is not required to prove guilt beyond all doubt or to a mathematical certainty or to a scientific certainty.”

It appears, based on these instructions, that Walton will answer the jury on Monday that no, the prosecution is not required to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to remember something in order to meet the "reasonable doubt" standard.

That would argue for a guilty verdict -- but the fact that many witnesses against Libby also were guilty of faulty memories argues against such a finding.

It's clear the jury is split and it's unlikely that, given the instructions he's already provided, anything Walton says on Monday will unsplit that split.

Prediction: Mistrial.

Next question: Will the special prosecutory then drop the case?

Prediction: Given that this whole trial appears driven by noting more than prosecutorial vanity, no.