February 27, 2006: Reporter and Leak Recipient Analyzes Effect of Libby Defense Fund Web Site

Slate editor John Dickerson, who played a small role in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see February 7, 2006), writes about the recently launched Lewis Libby defense fund’s Web site created to help raise money for Libby’s defense (see After October 28, 2005 and February 21, 2006). Far from looking like the Web site of an indicted criminal, Dickerson writes, the site’s design makes it seem as if Libby is running for elected office. He is shown with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, while “[o]ther snapshots portray him in soft focus and at oblique angles, the kinds of images candidates use to make themselves look more huggable. Fortunately, Libby’s Web designers didn’t stoop to showing him with dogs and children.”
The 'Soft Sell' - Dickerson says the site is attempting to portray Libby to the American people as a likeable, honest person whose years of public service have left him open to unfair and unwarranted criminal charges. The site claims that Libby has virtually no money with which to fight those charges, and is basically relying on the generosity of the public to help him fight the government. The site does not focus as strongly on the array of powerful Washington Republicans lined up to help Libby raise money, particularly the large number of star fundraisers who raised large amounts of money for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns. However, the site notes, the Libby defense fund will not publicly release the names of donors to the fund. The site does focus on what Dickerson calls “the soft Scooter sell.” It intends to “clean… up his image for the public, the press, and potential jurors. The Web site offers a page titled ‘What You Aren’t Hearing,’ with testimonials lined up like movie blurbs.”
Possible Defense Strategy - And, Dickerson writes, the site offers hints as to what Libby’s defense strategy might be.
If the site is accurate, the defense team intends to portray Libby as “a good guy” who, as former Republican congressman Vin Weber says in a testimonial, “is a tough, honorable, honest guy.” He has spent his adult life in “selfless,” and apparently almost penniless, service to his country, fighting for the American people and battling terrorism and other national security threats with every waking breath. He is a “perfectionist,” says former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Libby just forgot about his knowledge of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, the site emphasizes, because he was too busy serving his country (see January 31, 2006). Former Bush Legislative Affairs Director Nick Calio is quoted as saying: “There are a lot of things that I don’t remember. I go through notes sometimes now and say I don’t even remember being in the meeting, let alone, you know, having said what I said.” Former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson adds, “From personal experience as a former public official who has been investigated by a special prosecutor, I know how easy it is not to be able to remember details of seemingly insignificant conversations.”
Dickerson notes that the two arguments are somewhat contradictory. He writes, “Libby’s site has a hard time, because it simultaneously is trying to argue that a) he was likely to forget the Plame episodes and b) he was hypercompetent.”
The site also spends a large amount of time and bandwidth attacking special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Seven of the 19 perspectives on Libby are criticisms of Fitzgerald, such as a statement by former Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing (see November 3, 2005) that the special counsel “has been investigating a very simple factual scenario and he’s missed this crucial fact.” [Slate, 2/27/2006] Toensing will engage in further criticism of Fitzgerald and the criminal case against Libby in op-eds (see February 18, 2007, February 18, 2007, and March 16, 2007).