With Friends Like These...

When the defense began to put on its case in the O.J. Simpson trial, early on it called two witnesses that I can only assume its client insisted testify, as they were incredibly damaging.

The first was a doctor who examined Simpson in the days after the murder for the defense. Simpson wanted to call the doctor to say that Simpson was in such terrible physical condition that he couldn't have committed the murder, which, of course, was ridiculous. Neverthless, the doctor came on the stand and told the jury some pre-written line about Simpson looking like "Tarzan," but really he was physically like "Tarzan's grandfather."

OK. Great. So then the cross begins. Can you tell us what you saw on Simpsons' hands and fingers when you examined him? Uh, yeah, he had these really deep cuts that no one else has testified about before.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, by calling the doctor, then the defense opened the door to the prosecution playing an aerobics exercise video Simpson made in the months before the murder, and get the doctor to admit, based on what Simpson was doing in the video, that he was fit enough to commit the murders. What was Simpson wearing during the video? Uh, a black sweat suit (like the black fibers found on the victims). Did he ever return it after filming was over? Nope . Oh, and did Simpson make any comments while filming the video about his wife? Yeah, he made a strange comment while doing an exercise involving punching in the air, that you should work out with your wife when you do this exercise, so that way when you hit her, you can just blame it on working out. No further questions.

Not a good start for the defense. They obviously recovered, with the help of someone named Mark Fuhrman. But a similar thing happened during day one of the defense's case in the Libby trial, when they called Robert Novak to show that Libby did not leak to him (a point essentially irrelevant to the issues in the case):

When Novak testified, he noted that on July 8, 2003, shortly after Armitage told
him that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA, he (Novak) called Libby--and Novak's
phone records support this. Libby returned the call that day or the next,
according to Novak, and the two discussed the ongoing controversy concerning
Bush's use of the Niger allegation in his 2003 State of the Union trip. Novak
told the court that he might have asked Libby about Wilson's wife during this
conversation but had no recollection of doing so. Yet during his grand jury
testimony, Libby denied talking to Novak in this period. Libby claimed he had
not had any conversation with Novak at "any time near" Novak's July 14, 2003
leak column--noting he had spoken to Novak "maybe a year and a half" before that
article and then a "week and a half or so" after the column came out.

So Libby calls an essentially irrelevant witness who exposes him to yet another lie under oath. Nicely done. And before Novak, the defense called Walter Pincus, the Washington Post reporter, for the same purpose. But Pincus also had this to say:

According to Pincus, Libby told him that Wilson's trip to Niger had been sparked
by a question about the Niger allegation raised by an aide to the vice
president. But the CIA had dispatched Wilson to Africa after Cheney himself
asked about the Niger allegation. In talking to Pincus, Libby was dissembling to
keep the boss out of the picture.

And Libby himself testified to the grand jury that it was Cheney, not him, who raised the issue about the Niger allegation. So what did the defense do? It called two mostly useless witnesses who exposed two new lies by the defendant in a perjury trial. Well done.
- posted by Joshua @ 3:51 PM