I. Lewis Libby is being indicted for lying to the government -- a substantial offense, if he's indeed guilty. But Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft complains at the Huffington Post that Karl Rove might avoid serious punishment because he told the truth to the government. Merritt outlines a scenario (which as best I can tell has to be strictly theoretical at this point) in which Rove would "make a plea deal with Fitzgerald under which he agrees to plead guilty if Fitzgerald agrees to request a sentencing reduction to probation, because of his cooperation against others." She then concludes:
As a devout critic of the Bush Administration, I bring it up because I don't like rats. If Karl Rove isn't indicted, or gets a sweetheart deal, I can't conceive of any reason why other than he sang his heart out.
So what's a Bush Administration official supposed to do? I would have thought that telling the truth to investigators about criminal misconduct, including your colleagues' misconduct, is generally part of a government official's job. It's also sometimes the self-interested thing to do, but while that might mean you deserve less credit for it, it doesn't mean you should be condemned for it.
Merritt's view, though, seems to be that Rove would be a "rat," whom she "do[es]n't like," for "s[i]ng[ing] his heart out." Should he compound his initial offense (if he had committed an offense) by failing to do his duty? I've heard people condemn the Bush Administration for placing too much premium on loyalty over other virtues -- but surely few (on the Left or on the Right) would think that Administration officials should place such a premium on loyalty that they refuse to testify about others' criminal conduct? Or is it damned if you do (covering up your colleagues' crimes; shameful!), damned if you don't ("singing" about your colleagues' crimes; shameful!)?
I'm not trying to defend Libby, Rove, or anyone else here against allegations that they committed a crime -- I have't been following the details closely enough to have much to add about that. But I do want to speak out against this facile condemnation of people who actually do what the legal system rightly wants them to do, which is to reveal information that they have about crimes that the legal system is investigating. Loyalty is a virtue in some contexts; but not in this context.
Thanks to Mark Moore, who takes a similar view, for the pointer.
If some White House flunky had spilled the beans and the entire Administration got indicted, they'd be a hero to the Left. But if Karl Rove told the truth (an unlikely scenario, mind you, given the WH's public statements), he's a rat?
It is not the truth telling part that Merrit dislikes. It is the part where Rove would refuse to tell the truth unless given a deal.
Considering the source, I think this pretty much answers itself.
The issue isn't whether Rove is "failing to do his duty." The issue is whether he is ratting out others to protect himself. Rove would do his duty, as a public servant, by telling the truth without regard to his own interest. He isn't doing his duty by making a deal. Indeed, by conditioning his cooperation upon receipt of a favorable deal, he failed to do his duty. After all, telling the truth is a requirement of public service, but here, Rove might have sought private gain before telling the truth. That's a major moral failure, and I'm disappointed you failed to see that.
I don't think this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't argument.
For most of the left, the answer to this question is that Rove should announce that he has known all along that we need to raise taxes, shut down the Pentagon, nationalize most industries, and create a better welfare state than Sweden, but that he has refused to say so publicly because Enron was secretly paying him to work for the Republicans. Once he admits all this and starts driving a Prius the left will happily embrace him.
Strange world for sure Teresa.
What makes Rove a rat is not that he spoke truthfully to the investigators, if he did -- no one would carp at the behavior of someone who had been honest and aboveboard from start to finish -- but that he was intimately involved in the initial wrongdoing, and then turned his partners in crime in to the authorities to protect himself. Someone who neither does wrong himself nor protects others who do is an honorable man. Someone who does wrong, but keeps faith with his fellow wrongdoers, has at least what honor is possible among thieves. Someone who (as Rove appears to have) does wrong and then cravenly turns on his friends is a rat -- it is better for the enforcement of law that he should be a rat, but that doesn't make associating with him an attractive proposition.
Are you praising Rove for eschewing loyalty for the sake of principle, hypothetically?
The opinion you quote, I'd say is a rare outlier. The much bigger complaint of the Bush administration is that it puts loyalty before anything else. I've been pleased to see this issue come to the forefront recently, after having been ignored for so long.
If your hypothetical praise is an indirect criticism of the administration's usual behavior, then I guess I agree with you...
I suppose Rove should feel morally compelled to tell all, damn the consequences, under very different circumstances--if, say, lives hanged in the balance. But today's filing /is not/ an indictment of the decision to go to war in Iraq, however much we shall be hearing the opposite from Reid, Kennedy, and Dean. The only thing hanging in the balance now is Fitzgerald's case. No one is under an obligation--moral or legal--to incriminate himself in these circumstances.
There's usually an at least implicit assumption that the "rat" sold out his friends for personal gain (or to avoid personal consequences). Some dictionaries make this clear, some don't. The honorable thing to do is to confess to one's own misdeeds, and to take punishment for them, without mentioning the misdeeds of others (possibly even taking responsibility for their crimes). I personally don't think honor is all it's cracked up to be, but at least it isn't inconsistent in the way you think it is.
We call people who come forward of their own volition to talk about wrongdoing "whistleblowers" and we usually respect them. We call people who are forced to tell the truth by threat of prosecution (such as Sammy the Bull Gravano) "rats." We don't respect the rats, we just thank god that someone got their nuts in a vice long enough to get some truth out of them. That being said I have no opinion on whether Rove is a rat or not.
Or is there some evidence of a "deal" that I'm not aware of?
Ratting happens when the rat tells to further some goal that the ratted-on did not want to further, at least not enough to rat out himself. Often this goal has to do with protecting the rat. But that is not essential, I don't think. Not does the rat have to be acting in his self-interest. The rat can be acting to further any goal that is incompatible with and more important to him than protecting the person ratted on.
We don't know that they refused to indict. Fitzgerald may have just said, "I can't indict because I don't have enough," or (and given Rove's FOUR appearances before the GJ I think it's more likely) there may be a deal for Rove's testimony against Libby.
It's hard for me to believe that if Fitzgerald could indict Libby on something as small as 'false statements,' (no opinion expressed on the more serious charges) that he couldn't have done the same to Rove had he desired it.
So why didn't he? I don't think we know yet. And given that there'll be a plea, we probably won't know for certain.
A Grand Jury almost always indicts if the prosecutor thinks there's enough evidence to prosecute. The fact that they didn't means that either he didn't think he could prosecute, or for some other reason (a deal?) he chooses not to. Either way, secrecy is supposed to PROTECT the subject of an investigation if no indictment is returned.
Now, I don't know if Rove "sang" or "ratted" anyone out. But if he had information crucial to determining who committed a crime against national security, and he withheld this information until obtaining a personal benefit, then he is a moral failure.
Yes, it's what a our legal system allows. But just because it's legal doesn't make it moral.
I guess just because curious minds like to know.
"Exactly." What exactly is that?
I was just pointing out that we for sure don't know that "the Grand Jury refused" to indict Rove. That seems to me to be the most unlikely of scenarios. I don't think Fitzgerald said, "Indict this ham sandwich," and the GJ said, "No thanks." I think this is why we are all curious. Seems only natural.
Of course, I have no evidence that that is the case.
If Rove did commit perjury, and either escapes prosecution or receives a downward departure, it will presumably be because he cut a deal to, yes, rat out Libby. It is his prerogative to do so, but he deserves no moral credit for covering his own backside at the expense of his colleague. Of course Rove has no obligation to incriminate himself in front of the grand jury. But this does not mean he can properly lie to them either. That's what taking the Fifth is all about, eh?
I just don't see the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" element to this scenario except "damned if you lie the first time in front of a grand jury then tell the truth the second (third, and fourth) times around in order to save yourself." And that doesn't bother me.
My guess is "Official A" is Rove and that he had to go before the GJ four times in order to correct misstatements he made to the GJ the first time (and maybe the second and third) and then on the fourth, he dropped dimes on Libby for a deal. Hence he is called "Official A" in the indictment.
But I don't think we are ever going to know what Rove did wrong, or for that matter, what he didn't do wrong.
Perjury and obstruction are illegal. Libby will now have his day in court. On these charges. But not on charges related to damaging the ability of the US to conduct intelligence gathering, and, by extension, damaging national security. Or, if we do, shouldn't we be calling for Fitzgerald to be fired for incompetence?
Discuss.
I mean really, is it surprising that a guy who plots the campaign against McCain in SC spreading the rumor that he has an illegitimate black child would later rat out (assuming that's the case) others for personal gain?
Apropos of this subject, it is always remarkable to me that the NY Post, which has a very law-and-order editorial line, frequently uses the loaded terms "rat," "snitch," "sing," "canary," etc., in headlines. That may be one of the compromises a tabloid-format paper has to make.
Ask DeLay.
If I had a position like Libby's, I'd just make sure I never spoke to reporters about anything. But to be absolutely safe in Washington, you'd have to quit communicating to anybody, so how could you do your job?
This whole story seems like much ado over nothing. There's much to be said for prosecutorial restraint as well as judicial. If anybody had actually been harmed, I'd feel differently, but the whole Niger yellowcake story and the "Bush lied" claim based on it have never been more than left wing desperation. It offends me that anybody treats this so seriously.
Maybe the best conclusion is, if anybody asks you to take a job for the government, don't walk, run. Who needs the grief?
It's always the coverup that will get you. That's why the FBI always talks to you in pairs. One asks questions, both take notes, and if you aren't completely honest, FBI2 is a witness to your false statement charge, made by FBI1.
Note the 2 "Making false statements" charges. The first time the FBI talks with you they ask question, once you answer, they take notes, very carefully. You are then locked in to a story. Once that happened things go down hill, with more lies compounded in later FBI interviews and the Grand Jury.
I think that Rove was smart enough to tell the truth as best he remembered it each time he met with the investigators or the GJ. He did the right thing and the Bush political machine also deserves credit for not trying to destroy the Special Prosecutor, as the Clinton WH did.
Prediction: Rove will also resign if he doesn’t get assurances that he isn’t the target of the “ongoing” investigation Fitzgerald revealed at his press conference. Otherwise, the White House will be hamstrung with reporters fixated on Rove and rumors will keep flying around.
Rove, Libby and Miers should start up their own law firm specializing in helping those unfortunates who get in the media cross hairs.
Love your comment. Can't stop laughing.
Dear Elliot123
And, in a convertible with the top down!
Apparently Jeralyn Merritt believes only political crimes exist. I've seen her on TV many times and one gets the impression there is no crime because there are no criminals. No matter how heinous the crime nor how damning the evidence, according to her the perp just isn't guilty. But she seems convinced Karl Rove has committed a crime and is "ratting out" others to keep himself from suffering Joseph Wilson's "frog-march."
Resign. Every last one.
Ask me a hard one....