Not About The War

For those who missed it, Fitzgerald threw this lump of coal into your “Fitzmas” stocking :

QUESTION: A lot of Americans, people who are opposed to the war, critics of the administration, have looked to your investigation with hope in some ways and might see this indictment as a vindication of their argument that the administration took the country to war on false premises.

Does this indictment do that?

FITZGERALD: This indictment is not about the war. This indictment’s not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

This is simply an indictment that says, in a national security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer’s identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person — a person, Mr. Libby — lied or not.

The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction.

And I think anyone’s who’s concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn’t look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that.

They will be frustrated and, frankly, it would just — it wouldn’t be good for the process and the fairness of a trial.

Dammit. Nothing about the Niger forgeries. Nothing about the Downing Street Memos. Nothing about the politicization of intelligence. It’s just the leak and the cover-up.


posted by greg on October 28, 2005 @ 12:36 pm

4 comments

  1. You’re a smarmy little one, ain’t ya? Too bad so much of your vitriol is directed at demoralized liberals. You know, I’ve heard of this group you might be interested in, they’re called “the neoconservatives”, and…

    Comment by Leo Strauss — October 28, 2005 @ 1:57 pm

  2. I don’t agree that that’s anything to be disheartened about. His job isn’t to prosecute the war by any means. He was commenting only on the indictment itself–perhaps as part of the continuing investigation, he’ll look at these things or perhaps not–some of that may actually be accomplished by reporters in the conversation after this investigation–but I was delighted with his unwillingness to make broader statements about anything. He was doing his job and practically oozing integrity. I couldn’t ask for more.

    Comment by Anne — October 28, 2005 @ 4:18 pm

  3. Just remember - Al Capone was done in by tax fraud, not murder. The end result was the same - he died in prison. While it would feel more righteous if they were brought down for their blatant prosecution of an illegal war, let’s let the dominoes start tumbling, no matter how the first one is pushed over.

    Comment by FreedomByChoice — October 29, 2005 @ 8:36 am

  4. What’s important here is that these are people who have thought they can do whatever they want, to the detriment of the country. Finally, they’re getting caught for their ill-deeds, finally the media is beginning to call their spin, and maybe next time they won’t believe they’re about the law. That’s the true meaning of Fitzmas. That’s what Fitzmas is all about, greg.

    Comment by Anne — October 29, 2005 @ 10:35 am

Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.