If you say it often enough

(Before I begin, for the few right wingers who are left reading this blog, I am not going to deny Democrats have done this also. This is about events of last week and the people currently leading this charge are prominent right wing Republicans with many Republicans going along for the ride.)

If you say something often enough, does the lie become more powerful than the truth? If when you are questioned about facts you constantly switch back to your own spiel, will people forget the question?

To Republicans, the Scooter Libby trial and verdict of guilty was a miscarriage of justice. They are livid over anybody making a big thing over him lying to the FBI and Grand Jury about something that was not illegal-- if she wasn't covert. Their talking heads and newspapers are already demanding a full pardon for Libby.

The facts are harder to come by than the rhetoric on either side. The question of whether Valerie Plame was covert, which would have led to outing her being treason as well as a felony, is not fully answerable and maybe can't be proven. Part of the problem is covert officers set up phony jobs; they deny what they are doing to everybody. Republicans are saying everyone knew she was undercover. Well her own mother said she hadn't known. Her best friend said she never knew. Neighbors thought she was just a nice quiet mother of twins. But never mind that, talking heads say it was common knowledge and if you say it often enough...

From what I can determine, Plame had not gone on an undercover assignment since her twins were born. Would she have gone back into undercover work once they were in school? Well she won't be now, that's a given since she was outed-- as well as anyone else working for the shell company that was a CIA front. The book Plame has written about her life as a CIA operative is being gone over by the CIA to decide if it's safe to let it be printed given it might reveal classified information. If they clear the book, it might answer some of the questions; but if they don't, it will also.

What Cheney wanted, and there is no one denying this, was to muddy the waters. He didn't look good backing information that later was claimed to be false. Since Joe Wilson was the guy causing him grief, Cheney apparently used Libby as his tool to swift boat both Wilsons. Then distract from what had been said, what was done, by using other accusations. He certainly didn't want anyone able to prove the Bush administration, or one part of it, had known for a fact Saddam was not trying to get a nuclear weapon and knew it before Bush's State of the Union speech where Bush claimed this to be a known fact. So attack Wilson by saying he was a shill for his CIA wife.

Because of that obstruction of justice (for which Libby was just found guilty), this trial was not about the whole possible sequence of events, about possible deliberate lies to get a country into war. The trial was about Libby-- whether he deliberately lied to protect his boss if not the presidency. The accusation of what he was trying to cover up was not minor. It would have been basically treasonous if one arm of the government deliberately misled the country into war.

The general facts appear to have been that Valerie Plame recommended her husband had the qualifications to go to Africa and discern whether yellow cake, for making nuclear weapons, was being sought by Iraqis. Probably coincidentally, the following day the Vice President's office sent to the CIA a request for information on whether Iraqis were actually buying nuclear bomb materials in Africa. The Vice President did not request Wilson or anyone go. He just asked the question. The CIA apparently decided to send Joe Wilson to find out. So the White House can honestly say they didn't send him but did the query from the Vice President's office send him? That's where the two sides differ.

If Wilson had reported back that Saddam had indeed been trying to buy yellow cake, the Cheney people would have had no complaints. There are those who say he did say that, and it led to the false State of the Union speech. That is not what Wilson said after Bush's State of the Union. The trouble for the White House began when Wilson began making speeches saying he had seen no evidence in Africa to indicate the Iraqis had been trying to buy the yellow cake. It made Cheney look bad, and Cheney goes after anybody who makes him look bad. His target became Valerie Plame-- out her and make her look like the sole architect of Wilson's Africa trip. Turn the Wilsons into bad guys. This worked for a lot of Republicans who pretty much believe anything Cheney says.

The right wing says a lie is not a big deal (of course, he didn't lie, just had a bad memory) because it wasn't about something illegal to begin with. Well, it would be if she was covert. It would be if the real issue was about lying our country into a war. If the real issue was about hiding any facts that didn't fit the conclusion the Bush administration had already decided on, if the Cheney team was doing any of that, it was far more than in what order someone was told about Valerie Plame.

The possibility of it being treason, of it being an impeachable offense, is why it matters; and this is what Fitzgerald (who is by the way Republican) said after the trial. This was actually a successful obstruction of justice-- if it was obfuscating a situation to protect the leadership from possible criminal charges or articles of impeachment. None of that could be proven because of Libby lying. He took the fall but probably will get a pardon in the end. Would Bush dare not pardon him? Libby probably knows way too much to take that risk.

On Hard Ball, one of the Libby jurors said she hoped he'd get a pardon because he's a nice guy. A lot of people don't want him going to prison because they see him as a nice guy. I think the jurors who wanted him to be pardoned need to think a little bit about what he might have really been trying to hide-- as well as the cost that a lot of people have paid for that deception. Do nice guys do things like that?

The fact is that it's not just about whether Libby lied before a Grand Jury. Yes, that matters. Ask Bill Clinton about when he lied about an act that was not only not illegal but sent nobody off to die in a war. But one of the talking heads on Hard Ball said that it was okay to impeach Clinton because he admitted he lied. So, to the Right, if you are going to lie, keep on keeping on.

One point about Libby's terrible memory is he was supposed to be a high ranking aide, who was at the top of decision making in the Bush White House, but he didn't have to have a memory for anything. How does that work?

The reason it matters is this: Was at least one part of the Bush administration trying to get us into a war? That is what Fitzgerald hoped to uncover but was unable to do so due to Libby's poor memory or deliberate subterfuge. Did we go to war in Iraq with the leadership knowing the main justification they held over Americans was always a lie? That's where impeachment talk could take on real meaning.

Maybe Bush actually didn't know about this (then again maybe he did). But if this was all Cheney, perhaps it wasn't just trying to hide what he had done from the country but also from his boss. Bush had given him so much power, so much trust. Did he give him too much? Perhaps Cheney feared losing his influence in the Bush White House. IF that was true, then he might have sent out Libby to muddy the waters (ie swift boat). He wanted people's eyes off the real ball, off the issues. If Libby had told the truth to the Grand Jury and the FBI, he would not be in trouble now, but would Cheney be the one in bigger trouble?

If you say a lie often enough, a lot of people forget what it started out to be about.