Pushing Scooter Out The Airlock

Our respected colleague, Digby, writes about the news (according to Murray Waas) that Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column, and that the special prosecutor wants to know more about that.

Mr. Waas provides some helpful background information here about the reason Judith Miller went to the cooler.

The new disclosure that Miller and Libby met on July 8, 2003, raises questions regarding claims by President Bush that he and everyone in his administration have done everything possible to assist Fitzgerald's grand-jury probe. Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby's failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.

Libby signed a more generalized waiver during the early course of the investigation granting journalists the right to testify about their conversations with him if they wished to do so. At least two reporters -- Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC -- have testified about their conversations with Libby.

But Miller has said she would not consider providing any information to investigators about conversations with Libby or anyone else without a more specific, or personal, waiver. She said she considers general waivers to be inherently coercive. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has previously said Miller had not been granted "any kind of a waiver … that she finds persuasive or believes was freely given."

Digby, bless his otherwise liberal heart, seems to miss the point.

This is bullshit. The white house cannot get away with saying they are cooperating with the prosecutor by not talking --- and then not require the staff to fully cooperate with the prosecutor.

[...]

Now that it's been reported that Libby is the source Miller is protecting the media should demand that Libby free their sister from jail.

"Scott, Judy Miller is languishing in a DC jail because the vice president's chief of staff refuses to grant her a specific waiver. The prosecutor has told federal judges that he needs to talk to her. Is this what the president calls cooperating with the investigation?"

There really is no good reason why Libby hasn't provided a specific waiver for Judy if he told Fitzgerald he talked to her.

This doesn't work. The wingnuts will respond with utterly maddening circular logic like this: how can the White House coerce Scooter Libby into providing a personal waiver to Judy Miller that Judy Miller will accept as non-coercive?

This is why it is time to demand that the Vice President push Scooter Libby out the airlock. He must either resign or be fired. His continued employment as staff ubergruppenfuhrer for Vice President Dick "May I call you Dick?" Cheney is the major obstacle preventing him from cooperating with the special prosecutor.

Now, a conspiracy theorist— we never entertain conspiracy theory here at MojoWire— would tell you that the reason Libby wasn't fired two years ago was to keep him from cutting a deal for immunity and spilling everything. I don't buy that for a microsecond. Why, there is no doubt whatsoever that Libby has his job today because he's a devoted believer in the neoconservative cult. That's why it's time to make the White House and, in particular, the Vice President explain why they still have confidence in Scooter Libby after the disclosure that Judy Miller is in jail to protect him.

Update: I see that Dave Johnson at Seeing The Forest has fallen into the same trap as Digby.