WASHINGTON — Historians eventually come to the rescue of truth.
Unfortunately they take their own sweet time. They pore over
documents. They interview the culprits. By the time they unveil
their findings all the liars are crepes suzettes for the worms, and
the aggrieved are passe too.
With the indictment of the Vice President’s chief of staff, I.
“Scooter” Libby, after a two-year investigation by special
prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, one would think calm might befall
this great city as the courts take over and the pols return to
finish off a war, defend the homeland from terrorists, and perhaps
reform the tax code. Au contraire, instead all hell broke
loose, at least among the Democratic leadership — the rest of the
country seems unconcerned. Fitzgerald’s indictment is contained to
one man, Libby. He allegedly unmasked to the press a covert CIA
agent, who in recent years worked in suburban Northern Virginia.
Then Libby allegedly lied about it under oath. The Democratic
leadership apparently believes the pretty female agent could have
been assassinated, presumably while shopping among the foreign
agents in nearby cosmopolitan Tysons Corner or right there in the
produce section at the Safeway, bashed by a coconut-hurling
assassin.
Okay, okay, so I jest. Yet there is something eminently
jestworthy about the Democrats’ wild indignation in the wake of
this indictment. Their leading blunderbuss, Senator Harry Reid,
insists that the suave President George W. Bush apologize. Said
Reid, “He should apologize, the Vice President should apologize.
They should come clean with the American people.”
Oh yes, and the President’s chief adviser, Karl Rove, who is
apparently innocent of any crime, should resign or be fired, Reid
believes. Perhaps the Democratic leadership would be kind enough to
suggest a replacement. How about John Podesta, President Bill
Clinton’s last chief of staff? Podesta has had plenty of experience
with scandals. Though there is a difference between the scandals of
Clinton and the scandal of Bush, namely, Clinton’s involved his
willfully perpetrating a wide range of wrongdoing from campaign
finance violations, to abuse of power, to coitus
non-interruptus while in the office. Bush’s scandal involves
the Kultursmog’s criminalization of politics. An anti-Bush
adventurer, Joseph Wilson IV, smeared the Administration’s war
effort with a melange of lies, half-truths, and canards, provoking
some White House aides to “smear” Wilson, that is to say, to
identify him accurately as a politically motivated antagonist.
The issue, say the Democrats, is this Administration’s
shockingly low “ethical standards.” Well in light of the Democrats’
complicity in the Clinton Administration’s scandals, cover-ups, and
abuses of power, I think they have picked the wrong issue. The
historians will sort this all out, but it takes time.
The other night here in Washington the historically minded held
one of Washington’s most amusing events, the 28th Annual Pumpkin
Papers Irregulars dinner. It is a dinner that focuses on the most
recent revelations about one of modern America’s most overwrought
and unnecessary controversies, the trial and perjury conviction of
Alger Hiss, with special attention devoted to the ongoing debate
over one of American liberalism’s great heroes. Hiss fashioned what
has become a reliable liberal tactic, to wit, lie, lie despite all
the evidence against you, lie brazenly, lie heroically.
Hiss denied he ever was a Russian spy. He insisted that he told
the truth at his perjury trial. His conviction was a miscarriage of
justice. For years liberals argued on his behalf. At the dinner the
other night, Professor G. Edward White, himself a liberal but one
susceptible to historians’ revelations, talked of new findings
about Hiss that make it clear Hiss was a liar and a spy. For one,
from the time of Hiss’s conviction not one piece of exculpatory
evidence was unearthed. Yet as the years proceeded and Hiss lied so
heroically, the majority of the intelligentsia and the media came
to agree on Hiss’s innocence. At least that was the common wisdom
by the 1970s.
By the 1990s the Soviet archives had opened. Scholars such as
White and others discovered that Hiss was working with the Soviets
up until the time he was exposed. Moreover, American intelligence
from what we now call the Venona intercepts knew all about his
espionage connections. The longstanding Hiss controversy was
utterly unnecessary save for the fact that liberals are easily
duped and often very good liars.
I believe today’s Democratic leadership contains some very good
liars. They know that whatever Libby’s guilt the President has
nothing to apologize for. Yet they want to create as much scandal
as possible. Some say it is payback time for the Clinton scandals.
The difference, of course, is that Clinton was caught and even
admitted his guilt in an affidavit for the independent counsel.
Bush has had nothing to do with the present scandal, and at this
point it is unclear anyone committed a crime — unless it is a
crime for an Administration aide to defend the Administration
against another of the liberals’ liars, Joe Wilson IV. Historians
will get to the truth here, but by the time they do liberals will
not care. They might not even exist.
