Wingnuts lie about lying about lying

Jim Angle's, erm, angle made me laugh a little.

The thing is, the prosecution showed that Libby lied. Yes, it would have been better, smarter, for him to have said he didn't remember where he had heard about Wilson's wife, but that wouldn't serve the purpose of CYA for his boss. He didn't mistakenly sort through his memories and bungle his recollection. He purposely lied.

Toensing, who tried to misdirect the jury while they were considering their verdict by writing an oped column that severely misrepresented the law, is hanging on to the slenderest of threads. She has forgotten, one can only presume, that prosecutions have to prove that someone did something. If you are charged on five counts, and the jury feels four are proven and one isn't, it doesn't matter that it's inconsistent that you might be guilty of four and not guilty of the other. (Imagine if you will that a family of five are found dead, and you are accused of their murder. DNA evidence might make it a certainty that you did four, but the fifth might conceivably not have been you -- even though it seems obvious it must be because here are the other four, dead, in the same place. Most juries would convict you, of course, no matter the difference in evidence, but some would not. They are not being "inconsistent". They are being awesomely keen on sticking to their task.)

Barnes' wiffle is something we're going to hear a lot of. There was no underlying crime, so boo hoo, who cares? The problem with this is that a/ perjury is in itself a crime and b/ just because no one has been indicted for other crimes doesn't mean no one did anything wrong! If the police come round at ten tonight and find me completely stoned, but I ditch my stash before they can find it, or they find some paraphernalia but not enough to convict me of possession, well, did I or didn't I break the law?

Within a couple of weeks, the wingnuts will have Libby as an innocent man traduced by a huge miscarriage of justice, and not what he is, a liar who was caught lying in the service of liars, a common criminal, scum, Mr Big's new bitch.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:21 pm