Scooter Libby's conviction

I take a break from my usual cynical rants to bring you this more poignant moment of Schadenfreude....

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I heard the Scooter Libby verdict the first moment it was reported. Towards the end of my one-and-a-half-hour commute on the 405, I was zoning out on Morning Becomes Eclectic when I realized I was no longer listening to sitar techno, but rather a news report, something like: “On the count of obstruction of justice: guilty.” Though I had missed the announcement of whom they were talking about, I figured it out immediately. And after all the counts and guilty verdicts were rattled off, I nearly started crying.

I had no personal vendetta against Scooter Libby, no personal involvement in the case—I hadn’t even been following it that closely. I didn’t even think that, as far as treasonable acts went, revealing the identity of a CIA agent was really, in the grand scheme of things, that significant. Starting a war to get oil and lucrative military contracts, lying to the entire world about it, and then sending thousands of American soldiers to their unnecessary deaths seemed, I dunno, a bit more objectionable. But Scooter Libby was all we had. It was the only act that we could, with certainty, point to as treasonable. And I had been positive that they were going to wriggle out of that one, too.

After this administration managed to get the Supreme Court to stop a mere recount of ballots that had themselves been manipulated through, among other things, voter disenfranchisement, used false evidence to snow the American people and their representatives into supporting a ridiculously useless war, and got Congress to appoint Supreme Court justices that they had hand-picked for being on the side of their own pet causes, I became convinced that they were invincible. Their tactics, while dirty, were so perfectly executed, their ranks so tightly formed, and the American public so crazed over 9/11 that I could no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel. I could only conclude that I lived in a world of injustice: a world in which the Republicans controlled the government, in which I couldn’t get into grad school, and in which The Lord of the Rings could win the Oscar for Best Picture (though most people might argue over that last one). Essentially, it was a world in which I never got anything I wanted. As parents constantly, annoyingly remind their children, life just isn’t fair.

That dark cloud finally seemed to break after the 2006 mid-term elections. That was the first time, after six years, that I finally had hope that the good guys could actually win this thing. I know it seems a little hyperbolic when people compare this administration to the Third Reich, but I really felt like how it must have felt, after Hitler had literally assassinated his way into power and the entirety of Germany crazed with hatred and bloodlust, finally, say, losing France, and feeling the tide turn so that instead of Germany completing its bid to take over the world, finally returning to some semblance of normalcy. Instead of the Republicans’ completing their grand old plans to send America back to the 50’s, impoverish everyone but the impossibly wealthy top 1%, and conquer the Middle East or whatever it was PNAC intended to do, the other side actually had a chance to fight back at least fight to reinstate civil rights, restore the middle class, and stop the Iraq debacle.

Even so, I was pessimistic about the Libby trial. Both Rove and Cheney, after all, had managed to scramble away from that without so much as a scratch even though it seemed certain that they were somehow involved. So to hear that Libby was, in fact, convicted on several counts, while perhaps insignificant in the grand scheme of things—it’s not going to end the war, it’s not going to get Bush out of office—is just one more sign that this administration is not invincible and cannot break the law whenever it suits them, liars do get their comeuppance, and justice does have its day, and the idea of this stung my eyes with tears. As far as I’m concerned, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is a hero, gripping onto truth and justice like a bulldog. And while I’m aware that it’s a pretty big, self-centered, illogical leap to make a conclusion about my own life based on the conviction of a former White House aide, I did. It just seemed like a sign that even the most unlikely of outcomes against the most impossible of obstacles can still happen. Maybe I will sell a script; maybe I will find love and happiness. Maybe life isn’t so unfair after all.