October 31, 2005: Conservative Columnist Calls for Repeal of Independent Counsel Statute

Syndicated conservative columnist Cal Thomas writes that because the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak investigation is nothing more than a witch hunt to tar Bush administration officials over the war in Iraq, the special prosecutor law under which Patrick Fitzgerald is conducting his investigation should be abolished. According to Thomas, President Clinton was lauded by the media, and his investigator, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, was universally portrayed as a “sex maniac with a political agenda” who was hounding a “decent man” over a legal, if morally questionable, sexual liaison. “Thus, Clinton’s lies under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky were not a big deal.” The media is giving “saturation coverage” to the Libby indictments, Thomas claims, while it gave “short shrift” to Clinton administration indictments such as then-Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. The situation is different with accused perjurer Lewis Libby, Thomas writes (see October 28, 2005). Fitzgerald is being praised by media pundits as “an apolitical straight-shooter who is the definition of integrity” (see December 30, 2003, January 1, 2004, July 11, 2005, July 17, 2005, October 13, 2005, October 18, 2005, October 25, 2005, October 27, 2005, and October 29, 2005), and is running a fair and non-partisan investigation into crimes committed by Libby and perhaps other White House officials. According to Thomas, Fitzgerald is doing little more than working for administration critics who didn’t get their way over Iraq: “[t]hose who lost the policy battle over going to war are now fighting a rear-guard action in an attempt to damage the Bush administration and win the political war in time for the 2006 Congressional elections and certainly by the 2008 presidential contest.” Thomas says that since the Independent Counsel Law was passed in 1978 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, it has brought few convictions and cost taxpayers an inordinate amount of money. “Enough Democrats and Republicans have been forced to run this gauntlet that perhaps a truly bipartisan solution can be found to end it,” Thomas concludes. “That Libby’s indictments are not about policy, but about who remembers what and when, ought to be the final straw in this ridiculous process.” [Town Hall (.com), 10/31/2005]