Drinks with Harvey: The Libby Verdict

I was at a party once with a woman who believed in reincarnation. After she met my friend Harvey, she said that in a previous life she thought Harvey was “a great white shark—a miracle of evolution—an eating machine.”

I think the woman at the party was a victim of understatement. Harvey is more like a T-Rex on steroids.

“People are laughing in hell.”

When I got to Moe’s, Harvey was waiting for me. I hadn’t even ordered a drink before he said, “I hear people in hell are laughing.”

I had no idea where this was going. And I was tempted to parse his comment . . ... There are not supposed to be people in hell, there are supposed to be souls there. But with Harvey, parsing is not the wisest of options.

“People in hell are laughing,” Harvey laughed, “Yeah, GW’s week on earth is like what their life is like now.”

But Harvey didn’t want to talk about GW’s week from hell: the congressional hearings on the health care given to veterans . . . the hearings about the lawyers in the Justice Department who were fired—many think they were fired for political reasons. Harvey didn’t even want to talk about the news on Friday that the FBI committed thousands of violations of the Patriot Act. Harvey didn’t want to talk about the protests GW was dancing around during his visit to South America.

Harvey wanted to talk about the Scooter Libby conviction.

The Facts Mam

Last Tuesday, the former chief of staff of Vice President Cheney was convicted on four counts—two counts of perjury, one count of making a false statement to the FBI, and one count of obstructing justice.

Libby will be sentenced June 5. Conventional wisdom suggests Libby will be given one-and-one-half to three years in prison. Libby is the highest-ranking White house official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Many think Bush will pardon Libby.

The week’s national political news wasn’t all sour. Al Kamen, a columnist for The Washington Post is running a contest. He has asked readers to submit guesses regarding when Bush will pardon Libby. Those who submit the ten closest guesses will win a t-shirt.

“It would have taken me ten minutes.”

Harvey said, “Ten days. Took the jury ten days. Wouldn’t a taken me ten minutes.”

Finally, Harvey paused long enough for me to order a drink.

Harvey continued, “I mean what were they doin? Listenin to their iPods and drinkin Pina Coladas?”

I informed Harvey that though I did have a few sources in DC, none were on the jury.

“Ah . . . columnists,” he said. “Always being cute. You know what I think of cute.”

Harvey hates cute.

He used his comment about columnists to harass me about some of the comments I have made in columns lately. I was finishing my second drink before he returned to Libby.

Controlling the Message

Harvey had used his computer to access some documents from the trial. Harvey spent a long time showing me printouts he had made that showed how Cheney and his staff had tried to control the administration’s message concerning the run-up to the war in Iraq. There were criticisms of the Bush Administration’s logic for invading Iraq. Some of the criticisms led to the Libby case.

About ten times Harvey said, “Cheney talked about going on Meet the Press because the spokesperson for the administration could control the message.” He also talked about how more conventional sources, like the New York Times and op-ed pieces in major newspapers could be used to control the news.

Harvey took a sip from his drink. Then he sighed. “God I’m glad I’m out of it.”

Like me, Harvey used to be a newspaper reporter. Unlike me, he left to pursue a more lucrative profession. He and his wife make a pile of dough selling houses.

Harvey left reporting because he got tired of being used.

Harvey said, “Often I would come home from work and feel as if I’d spent the entire day getting doused by a skunk.”

One Reason Reporter’s are a Cynical Group

Whether a reporter is covering an inauguration or an investigation, the reporter is always a conduit for various sources. Often when using comments from politicians in powerful positions, it is very easy for a reporter to feel as if s/he is being used.

Politicians have been “using” reporters for as long as both have been in existence. All good politicians try to use reporters. All good politicians try to use every tool the media has.

All good reporters and all good media outlets balance comments from powerful politicians with a healthy dose of hard work and pragmatic skepticism. Keeping an appropriate balance is easy when you do not put a high value on social graces or on being liked.

This is one reason why Harvey was an excellent reporter.

But for the rest of society, for the reporters who want to be invited to one-on-one briefings, for the reporters who want to keep their friends close and their sources closer, maintaining this balance is probably impossible.

Which Brings us to the Bush Administration

The Bush Administration pushed much harder than most to control the media. In some situations this strategy worked very well—for the short term. It is now easy to substantiate that during the run-up to the war in Iraq, that the US media did not do nearly enough to question and dig deeply into the assertions the Bush Administration was making. The US media let the Bush Administration use them too much. The US media didn’t let their pragmatic portion of their skepticism do enough work.

Sometimes an administration uses public forums to state its case to the American people—what Harvey would call using the media.

The Bush Administration used public forums to do most of the work to present the case to attack Iraq.

The Bush Administration often used high-level confidential sources to control the mop up operations—the “little” dribs and drabs that leak out of most operations. The case that provoked Libby to make the comments that led to his trial was one of these mop-up operations.

Confidential sources are crucial to many stories. The great work done by Woodward and Bernstein on Watergate often relied on confidential sources. The great work done by Dana Preist and Annie Hull to expose the bureaucratic horror and small bore cruelties veteran outpatients had to endure was also the result of confidential sources.

Confidential sources played a central role in the Libby trial.

Ten out of the nineteen witnesses at the Libby trial were reporters.

It wasn’t just Scotter Libby on trial. In a very important way, American journalism was also on trial. Seeing journalists walk to and from the courtroom certainly scarred the reputation of journalism in the US.


Harvey Pontificates

Harvey talked for quite a while about the Libby case. He said that the hardball politics the Bush Administration has played resulted in the Libby case. He said, “Many who might be sources will think often about the ‘complexities of confidentiality.’ “

Harvey said that in the future judges probably will not be reluctant—as they often have in the past—to throw journalists in jail for protecting their sources.

Harvey took a gulp from his drink. Then he continued, “There’s more. The incendiary bomb Bush’s war in Iraq has become in the Middle East is just beginning to burn. When Bush came into office, poverty was at a 26 year low. Now it’s at a 32 year high. The US now has five million more poor people than it had in 2000. The Bush Administration’s horrible response to Katrina is yet another scar on Bush’s presidency. The debt is rising faster than a hooker’s dress. We’ve lost eight years in the fight against global warming.”

Harvey took a long pull on his drink, “And Bush’s hardball politics has scuffed up the image of the media.”


Cloud of Suspicion

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did most of the heavy lifting that led to the Libby trial. He said, "There is a cloud over the vice-president . . .. That cloud is something that we just can't pretend isn't there."

One thing about having a few drinks with Harvey, there is plenty of time to drink. Once he gets going, you don’t even need to prompt him with questions.

Also, talking with Harvey gives you plenty of reason to drink.

“All this Cheney stuff. Of course there’s a cloud. In most administrations, the VP goes into attack mode. It’s the VP who handles the red meat of most campaigns. You can’t think that the VP can do a whole lot in any administration without some sort of consent from the President.”

“So all this talk by the media about whether Cheney will go, it’s all missing the point?”

“Exactly. Putting the VP into attack mode helps the Prez stay above the fray. All this noise in the media about whether Cheney will go plays right into the Administration’s hands. Bush’ brain, Carl Rove wants the heat on Cheney—not on GW.”

I took a sort of inventory. In a few short minutes Harvey had attacked my columns and the media. Usually in the time it takes me to sip a drink with Harvey he also can insult the American people. I was almost done with my drink. Was Harvey mellowing?

Valuable Lesson?

The obvious question for me to ask was if the Libby Trial would have any significant impact on Bush. Once again, Harvey didn’t need to be prompted. “Bush is so deep into the dumps that this can’t hurt him much. What is his overall approval rating, 29%? My goodness. A lame duck can’t get much lamer than that.”

Given the unabashedly cheery nature his comments I thought it was a time for something really depressing. “So do you think many will get some sort of valuable lesson from all this?”

Harvey put his glass down. “Some of the mud will stick. Some of the mud always sticks. But is this some sort of [I deleted an explective] morality tale playing out before an enthralled American public?”

Harvey answered his own question. “Of course not. The story’s too complex. The particulars are too complicated. Without sex, lurid pictures, sultry rumors, Americans will never en masse pay attention to such complicated stuff.”

“So the lessons will be lost on most of us?”

He nodded.

And some people wonder why reporters are a cynical lot.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary on the convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from de Gaulle’s comment, “Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”