Mr. O'Donnell's comments on MSNBC's "Countdown" news show came just shortly after trial juror Denis Collins appeared on Countdown to say "I'd have no problem with a pardon for Libby." We don't have the video or transcript for O'Donnell's comments, but will post them when they become available at MSNBC. Here is the link for Mr. Collin's statement:
http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/07/84130.aspx
Update: O'Donnell's comments, full transcription, bottom this e-mail or at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17518069/
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<< I think what you‘ve seen in the last hour on MSNBC is actually a very, very big PIECE OF MOMENTUM _ADDED_ to the Libby PARDON SITUATION, when you have jurors saying they either have no problem with him being pardoned or would like to see him pardoned. I think that‘s something the president will take very, very seriously in JUSTIFYING A PARDON down the road. >>
SAY IT AIN'T SO, LAWRENCE!
Why don't we just create an office of "The President's Own Authorized Assassins, 'undercover-agent outers,' Intimidators, Smear-meisters and Knee-bashers" while we're at it...?
Wow
IF ever one needed a text-book example of how the Bush-Cheney White House gets away with their serial crimes and corruptions in Washington, one need look no further than at former Senate DEMOCRATIC Staff Chariman LAWRENCE O'DONNELL's appearance on MSNBC's "Countdown" news show last night (regular anchor Keith Olberman was on vacation)
Given the BIG MEDIA MICROPHONE for five minutes, what does O'Donnell do????
- O'Donnell expressed SYMPATHY for Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - who had just been found GUILTY of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE and PERJURY in a trial by his peers in a Washington courtroom - and started JUSTIFYING a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON for the sole "fall-guy" of an OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE campaign that WON BUSH re-election in 2004!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/jury-pardons-libby_b_42941.html
Just to remind Mr. O'Donnell (who we have found to be one of the most aggressive and insightful Democratic former officials in op-ed columns and on TV appearances), the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE for which Mr. Libby was just convicted EFFECTIVELY WON President Bush his re-election 'win" in 2004... by STONEWALLING honest answers to prosecutor's LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS in the investigation of how an entire CIA undercover operation was "outed" in mid-2003, when undercover CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson's name became almost as commonly known as that of Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky - as a result of a pre-meditated effort by the Vice President's office to "shop" Ms. Wilson's name to reporters as a means of INTIMIDATING and DESTROYING THE REPUTATION of her husband, who had publicly challenged the administration's excuses for attacking Iraq.
Mr. O'Donnell, if your sympathies lie with winning elections by OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE, and DESTROYING administration critics by a chronic and premeditated campaign of intimidation and personal attacks (i.e. "smearing"), WE MIGHT AS WELL DISBAND the "opposition party" and US Constitutional form of checks, balances, and restraints on government right now.
(Note how in our previous post, from just yesterday,
http://democraticnationusa.blogspot.com/2007/03/libby-convicted-of-perjury-obstruction.html
we PREDICTED that the Senate Democrats would be LOOKING for an opportunity to HELP THE BUSH-CHENEY White House SWEEP the felony conviction under the carpet, and down the memory hole. We are only suprised and disappointed that a respected out-of-government fighting Democrat Lawrence O'Donnell is making that play... barely two full days after the conviction! This BETRAYAL of those HARMED by the Cheney-Libby-Rove-Bush HIT-JOB on the CIA and outspoken war critics, will almost certainly mean the collapse of support for the Democrats by the 2008 elections. If Democrats are TOO COWARDLY to CONFRONT the FELONY CONVICTIONS of the Cheney-Bush White House, the American public will realize they are unworthy of leadership in time of crisis; as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry ran a pathetic and anemic campaign in the summer of 2004, and allowed himself to be ROBBED of the winning vote margin in Ohio in November of 2004.)
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As promised, MSNBC's Countdown transcripts of LAWRENCE O'DONNELL's "Pardon Libby!" comments:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17518069/
From the fall guy to the fallout, Scooter Libby wasn‘t the only loser to emerge out of yesterday‘s guilty verdict, his conviction causing big problems for the White House, and for the media, which didn‘t exactly come out of the trial smelling like a rose.
For more on all of that, let‘s call in political analyst Lawrence O‘Donnell, a frequent contributor to the HuffingtonPost.com.
Good evening to you, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be here.
STEWART: I want to tell you a story. This happened to me on Monday night. I was flying back to New York, and I was reading “All the President‘s Men.” And a woman sitting next to me looked at the cover of my book, then turned to her husband—she was in her late 60s—and she goes, Hey, did they decide that Libby thing yet? You know, if she was already equating Libby to a scandal as big as Watergate—because I was reading “All the President‘s Men”—how damaging do you think this Libby verdict could be, if somebody on plane was making that connection?
O‘DONNELL: Well, actually, I think the damage has already been done, in that the president‘s poll numbers are probably about as low as they could go. If the president was currently, you know, riding about a 50 percent approval, I think you‘d see this verdict put a real hit on that.
But he‘s already swung downward. So I‘m not sure that this verdict‘s going to have an impact on the president‘s polls. I don‘t think there‘s anything that‘s going to follow this. Patrick Fitzgerald was very clear that, as far as he‘s concerned, he‘s done with this case. There won‘t be more prosecutions, there won‘t be any more real investigation.
The Congress might make a little noise about getting interested in it, but they won‘t. They will not take up an investigation of it.
So I think it ends here as a story, and the question from this point forward is going to be taken up with the question of, Will Libby get a pardon? I think what you‘ve seen in the last hour on MSNBC is actually a very, very big piece of momentum added to the Libby pardon situation, when you have jurors saying they either have no problem with him being pardoned or would like to see him pardoned. I think that‘s something the president will take very, very seriously in justifying a pardon down the road.
STEWART: Let me bring in what Senator Chuck Hagel has been talking about. He‘s announced he might be interested in running for president. This could actually happen on Monday. He‘s raised the possibility of impeachment in this new interview with “Esquire” magazine. Let me read this quote to everybody.
“The president says,” quote, “‘I don‘t care.‘ He‘s not accountable any more. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don‘t know, it depends on how this goes.”
Realistically, is impeachment even in the realm of possibility, Lawrence?
O‘DONNELL: No, I don‘t think it is. I think there‘s not something here that‘s going to lead to that. There isn‘t a Congress that‘s going to take it up and push it. It‘s not what the Democrats feel they got elected to do.
And this doesn‘t in any way add incriminating evidence about the president of the United States. The president‘s conduct was not on trial here. It got up to the vice president, the testimony in the case, and it left some question marks around the vice president. But it didn‘t get to a point where you could reasonably say, OK, the Libby trial certainly gives us grounds to start moving an impeachment bill in the House of Representatives. That just isn‘t there. There‘s no one in the House who thinks it‘s there. So we‘re not going to see it.
STEWART: One more question before I let you go. The D.C. media elite took a little bit of a beating during this trial. On one hand, some of them looked like, well, stenographers for the Bush administration, as it was building for its case for war. And on the other hand, the investigation itself chipping away at the protections that reporters have enjoyed from having to disclose anonymous sources. Will any of this damage to the media be permanent?
O‘DONNELL: Well, first of all, the press has no protection whatsoever, absolutely none. There is no federal protection. There are some states that give protection to reporters, in certain circumstances, from subpoenas, but there is none in federal court. There never was.
So they didn‘t lose any right here. They never had one. But, in attempting to enforce one, what “TIME” magazine and “The New York Times” did, by fighting their subpoenas for one year, and—but ultimately having to give in, is that they delayed the Libby indictment by one year. If the Libby indictments had come out in October of 2004, I believe that would have affected the presidential election. I think that would have swung votes, enough votes, to John Kerry, the election would have gone the other way.
So in effect, the White House attempt to cover up what actually happened in the Joe Wilson response, run by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, was—that coverup was successful, in that we didn‘t get to discover any of this until well after the 2004 election. And that‘s really all they cared about, was getting this story past the 2004 election.
STEWART: Political analyst Lawrence O‘Donnell. Thanks for your time tonight.
