As Weinberger's private notes contained references to Bush's endorsement of
the secret shipments to Iran, some believe that Bush's pardon was an effort to
prevent an order for Bush to appear before a grand jury or possibly to
avoid an indictment. Weinberger's indictment stated that Weinberger's notes
contradicted Bush's assertions that he had only peripheral knowledge of the arms
for hostages deal since Weinberger's personal notes.

MEMORANDUM

From: Copy Desk
To: David Brooks
July 3, 2007

Mr. Brooks, our apologies. There was a snafu yesterday, and we neglected to
send you the edited version of your latest column, which contained several
queries from us. What appeared in today's Times was the copy you initially
filed--with all those queries obviously unaddressed. Again, we apologize for the
error and hope this did not cause you any trouble or embarrassment. For the
record, below is the marked-up version of your column.

By DAVID BROOKS

In retrospect, Plamegate was a farce in five acts. The first four were
scabrous, disgraceful and absurd. Justice only reared its head at the end.
[Powerful opening. Setting the bar high. Must be proved.]

The drama opened, as these dark comedies are wont to do, with a strutting
little peacock who went by the unimaginative name of Joe Wilson. [Pot calling
kettle back, Mr. Brooks? Besides, do most "dark comedies" open with plain-named
birds. Query Mr. Rich?]

Mr. Wilson claimed that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to
investigate Iraqi purchases in Niger, though that seems not to have been the
case. [Chronology problem? Mr. Wilson did not "open" this "comedy" with such a
claim. He began the episode by publishing an op-ed--on the very same page your
column appears--that accused the administration of having "twisted" the prewar
intelligence. The issue of his wife's involvement in his mission to Iraq came
later.] He claimed his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts, though his
own report said nothing of the kind. [He did not claim his trip had
"proved"--your word--the matter. He wrote that after speaking with past and
present officials of Niger and "people associated with the country's uranium
business," he had concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any such
transaction had ever taken place." (We can forward you a copy of his op-ed.)
And, as you know, columnists of the Times are not fact-checked. But we would
point out that in his Times op-ed, Mr. Wilson did not claim, as you state, that
"his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts" to purchase uranium. He
maintained that "there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry
for a sale to have transpired." And--not to belabor what might be a
fact-checking issue--according to a Senate intelligence committee investigation,
the report written by the CIA on Mr. Wilson's trip "described how the structure
of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Niger
to sell uranium to any rogue states."]

In short order, Wilson established himself as the charming P.T. Barnum
of the National Security set, an inveterate huckster who could be counted on to
wrap every actual fact in six layers of embellishment. [An idea: explain the
"actual facts" and then list the "six layers of embellishment."] His small part
in the larger fiasco of the Iraq war would not have registered a micron of
attention had the villain of the epic--the vice president--not exercised his
unfailing talent for vindictive self-destruction. [We suggest you peruse some of
the clips of that time. Mr. Wilson's op-ed and his concurrent appearance on Meet
the Press generated more than a "micron of attention"--and that occurred before
the vice president responded to Mr. Wilson's charges.]

Act Two opened with a cast of thousands crowding the stage, filling the air
with fevered vapors and gleeful rage. Perhaps you can remember those days, when
the Plame story pretended to be about the outing of an undercover C.I.A. agent.
[How can a story pretend to be something? And, if memory serves, there was
indeed an outing of an undercover CIA official.] Perhaps you can remember the
howls of outrage from our liberal friends, about the threat to national
security, the secret White House plot to discredit its enemies. [For the
reader's benefit, you might want to note Ms. Wilson's position at the time of
her outing: operations chief for the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit of the
Counterproliferation Division of the CIA's clandestine operations directorate.
And you might want to note that her primary duty was overseeing covert
operations designed to gather intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. Then again, you
might not want to note this. Also, you seem to be suggesting there was no secret
White House action to discredit Mr. Wilson. Are you aware that Mr. Libby met
with Judith Miller, a former employee of this paper, and passed her classified
information that he hoped would discredit Mr. Wilson? Are you aware that Mr.
Libby conveyed classified information about Ms. Wilson to Ari Fleischer, then
the White House press secretary, and Mr. Fleischer says he shared this
information with reporters as part of an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's
charges?]

Perhaps you remember the media stakeouts of Karl Rove's driveway, the
constant perp-walk photos of Rove on his way to and from the grand jury, the
delirious calls from producers (The indictment is coming today! The indictment
is coming today!). [Our readers might also remember that Mr. Rove leaked to Matt
Cooper, then of Time, classified information regarding Ms. Wilson's covert
employment at the CIA. As Mr. Cooper noted in an email, Mr. Rove did so "on
double super secret background." They might possibly also recall that Mr. Rove
confirmed Ms. Wilson's status as a CIA employee for Robert Novak, the first
journalist to disclose her CIA identity.]

There were media types so eager to get Rove, so artificially appalled at
the thought of somebody actually leaking classified information, they were
willing to forgive prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for throwing journalists in
jail. [You cite many unnamed characters in this "dark comedy." Perhaps you ought
to consider naming some of these "media types."] It was like watching a city of
Ahabs getting deliriously close to the great white whale. [No one on our desk
has read that classic recently. But a quick question: was Moby Dick ever
suspected of having committed a crime?]

That was back when everybody thought Rove was the key leaker. But then it
turned out he wasn't. Richard Armitage was, as Fitzgerald knew from the start.
[See our note above. Mr. Rove did leak to Mr. Cooper and Mr. Novak. It was only
because Time held its story for several days that Mr. Novak had the "scoop" and
beat out Time. Had that not happened, Mr. Rove might have won the title of chief
leaker.]

By the start of Act Three, nobody cared about the outing of a C.I.A. agent.
[Nobody? We are relatively sure that the Wilsons cared, that CIA officials
cared, that Mr. Fitzgerald cared, that congressional Democrats cared, and that
thousands of Americans who followed this story in the media cared.] That part of
the scandal disappeared. And all that was left of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame
were the creepy photos in Vanity Fair. [You might want to consider describing
the photos. A blonde in a convertible might not come across as "creepy" to
all.]

Act Three was the perjury act, and attention shifted to the unlikely figure
of Scooter Libby. [What is "unlikely" about a White House aide accused of
lying?] As Joe Wilson was an absurd man with a plain name, Scooter Libby was a
plain man with an absurd name. [What's in a name?] And the odder thing was that
Libby was the only normal person in the asylum. [Have you read the sex scenes in
his one novel? A girl with a bear?] People who knew him thought him discreet,
honest and admirable. [We hear he was also a quiet man. Mention that?] And yet
the charges were brought and the storm clouds of idiocy gathered once more.
[We're not lawyers, but we do believe that there are instances when criminal
charges are filed against people who other people consider admirable. You might
want to explain why a special prosecutor should not file obstruction of justice
charges against an official suspected of lying to investigators.]

Republicans who'd worked themselves up into a spittle-spewing rage because
Bill Clinton lied under oath were appalled that anybody would bother with poor
Libby over lying under oath. [Is there a continuity issue here? Above you
contend that the charge was a product of idiocy. Shouldn't that justifiably
cause Republicans to be appalled?] Democrats who were outraged that Bill Clinton
was hounded for something as trivial as perjury were furious that Scooter Libby
might not be ruined for a crime as heinous as perjury. [You seem to be skating
past the case the Democrats made: lying to the FBI during a national security
investigation is different from lying about sex in a civil proceeding.] It was
an orgy of shamelessness. The God of Self-Respect took sabbatical. [Any word on
what the God of Thou Shall Not Lie did at this time?]

The trial and sentencing, Act Four, was, to be honest, somewhat
anticlimactic. Fitzgerald, having lost all perspective, demanded Libby get a
harsh sentence as punishment for crimes he had not been convicted of. [We
realize you were not in the courtroom during the trial, but news reports and
transcripts show that Mr. Fitzgerald argued that committing perjury during a
national security investigation was a serious matter and that a stiff sentence
was warranted for that crime.] The judge, casting himself as David against
Goliath, demonstrated an impressive capacity for talking about himself. [Ditto
the previous remark. Again, we do not fact-check columnists for the Times, but
one of us did call--merely out of curiosity--several reporters who covered the
case, and they told us that Judge Reggie Walton did not cast himself as a
David-type figure, nor did he talk about himself more than the average federal
district court judge. You might want to reconsider a characterization not
supported by actual eyewitnesses.]

And finally, yesterday, came Act Five, and a paradox. Scooter Libby emerged
as the least absurd character in the entire drama, and yet he was the one who
committed a crime. [Another continuity problem? If the chief of staff to the
vice president commits a crime, shouldn't there be a thorough investigation and
even a rigmarole?] President Bush entered the stage like a character from
another world, a world in which things make sense. [A world like Baghdad?]

His decision to commute Libby's sentence but not erase his conviction
was exactly right. It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the
phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his
career, but not his family. [Fact: after Mr. Libby was indicted and resigned
from Mr. Cheney's staff, he was named a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a
conservative think tank. The Washington Post reported that his salary is
probably at least $160,000--perhaps more. Most readers would think that with
such a position Mr. Libby's career is not over.]

Of course, the howlers howl. That is their assigned posture in this drama.
They entered howling, they will leave howling and the only thing you can count
on is their anger has been cynically manufactured from start to finish. [Once
again, continuity. If Mr. Libby did commit a crime--which you bravely
acknowledge he did--then shouldn't anger be an appropriate response. Who are the
howlers whose anger was "cynically manufactured"? And who did that
manufacturing? Specifics would help.]

The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby's family will
remember it in a few weeks time. Everyone else will have moved on to other
fiascos, other poses, fresher manias. [Good teaser of an ending. It's as if you
expect another Bush aide to be caught lying under oath.]

Setting aside whether Scooter Libby should spend 0 days in jail for what
most people spend from 1 to 3 years in jail, the key here is that it's
inappropriate for the president to pardon or commute a sentence in a case in
which he (i.e., the president) is a party to the same underlying crime. Because
it amounts to obstruction of justice.

It's really not that complicated.

Later that fall, as the scandal erupted, Libby asked Cheney to ensure that the
White House spokesperson publicly exonerated him, as he had earlier done for
Karl Rove. To make sure this happened, the Vice President started to write a
note, "Not going to protect one staffer [meaning Rove] and sacrifice the guy the
President..." But then Cheney stopped. He crossed out the first four letters of
the word, "President" and finished the sentence: "...that was asked to stick his
neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." He came close
to writing that President Bush had asked Libby to take the lead on responding to
Wilson. And then, according to some trial testimony, he got Bush to make sure
Libby got his public exoneration, a public claim that Libby had nothing to do
with the leak of Plame's identity.