I noted awhile back in a post that Colin Powell and Richard Armitage, then respectively Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State, had allowed Scooter Libby to twist in the wind even as they knew perfectly well that it was Armitage who had leaked the (trivial) details of Valerie Plame's CIA career. And they did so as part of an everyday manifestation of Beltway insider hardball over the Bush Iraq policy.
It turns out, as detailed in Paul Wolfowitz' letter to Judge Walton urging sentencing leniency for Libby, that Libby, while an attorney in private practice, had "helped a public official defend himself successfully against libelous accusations, something that is extremely difficult to do for anyone in public office. The official in question was Richard Armitage..."
So: Is there anyone out there prepared to defend the proposition that Armitage is not the scum of the scum of the earth? In the words of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "Anyone? Anyone?"
It turns out, as detailed in Paul Wolfowitz' letter to Judge Walton urging sentencing leniency for Libby, that Libby, while an attorney in private practice, had "helped a public official defend himself successfully against libelous accusations, something that is extremely difficult to do for anyone in public office. The official in question was Richard Armitage..."
So: Is there anyone out there prepared to defend the proposition that Armitage is not the scum of the scum of the earth? In the words of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "Anyone? Anyone?"
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I wanted to post about this, but could not compose a post that was less than two-thirds expletives.
This is extremely childish of me, but from now on if I ever, for any reason, have to refer to Richard Armitage, I will substitute a fitting anagram of his name:
Grim Cat Diarrhea
When Wretchard passed along the news about this letter over at the Belmont Club, he published it under the headline If You Want a Friend, Buy a Dog.
I went and looked at the 30 odd pages of letters sent to District Court Judge Reggie Walton and was astounded to see as many step forward in his support as did.
In addition to this letter from Paul Wolfowitz were plaudits from Don Rumsfeld, John Bolton as well as from odd couple Matalin and Carville.
All which prompts the question: "Your honor: Is it a good thing or a bad thing to get letters of support from people who are in the outs in DC?"
And as for those still in high positions of influence: I can understand silence from the Prez; but not a peep from the VeePee?
Sigh. I fear I must nominate Wretchard as the winner for choosing the most suitable headline for this story.
Armitage may be a scum, but what does that make Fitzgerald? He knew from the get go that it wasn't Libby and that there was no crime involved. Yet he spent years going after some kind of conviction, anything he could find. In my book that puts him a level below a scum like Armitage.
We have established two points, accurate though somewhat diminished by their superfluousness. 1) Armitage is a lowlife. 2) Hutchins is a genius.
As Ogden Nash might have put it:
Be he ever so State-ly
Richard wounded folks greatly
Be she ever so gracious
Kathy's wit is stercoraceous.
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