Libby Lied, Clinton Lied, Media is Consistent

Victoria Toensing, who blasted media treatment of the Valerie Plame affair, post-Libby verdict has updated her comments. Since Toensing helped write the law that determined Plame wasn’t “outable”, her continued criticism of Fitzgerald’s prosecution is worth reading.

Why does the media that protected Clinton when Kenneth Starr was attempting to impeach him for perjury and obstruction of justice now glory in a guilty verdict for Scooter Libby on the same charges? Do they have no shame? Aren’t they just monuments to hypocricy?

I say no. The media is being perfectly consistent. Lying doesn’t matter. Obstruction of justice doesn’t matter. What matters are the underlying motivations. In Clinton’s case, the motivation was benign. The sex he had with Monica Lewinsky was consensual, and his lying to protect the parties involved was understandable.

Libby, on the other hand, was part of a White House smear operation designed to exploit the media’s desire for leak-fueled inside information, one that put a leading reporter in jail, disrupted the lives, and raised the legal costs of, several others. Libby along with his bosses deserved to be punished. Fitzgerald is as good as Starr was bad. Justice prevails.

I too am consistent. Perjury and obstruction of justice do matter. They matter in and of themselves. Both Starr and Fitzgerald did the jobs they were paid to do, and both Clinton and Libby, who lied under oath, should have paid for their crimes.