For several days, I have been involved in various discussions in various places over the whole Scooter Libby commutation. What amazes me, while it shouldn't, is the lack of any real knowledge of the facts behind the case, the trial itself, or the evidence involved. It isn't like there weren't reams and reams of it available. Yet, too many discussions just seem to skip over the facts and get on with whatever talking points best suit them. Somehow, it is enough to just keep tossing out all sorts of nonsequiturs and irrelevancies to create the illusion that debate on the question of Libby's guilt is a matter of controversy, rather than an established fact of our legal system. An established fact, by the way, through a thoroughly transparent process wherein two sides confronted one another, each presenting the evidence each possessed, and a jury weighed the evidence and testimony and decided the prosecution's case was clear.
It is impossible to discuss this issue with those who wish to "debate" it. In the same way there is no reason to "debate" evolution or global warming, there is no reason at all to "debate" Libby's guilt or innocence. He was found guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt (which is a very high standard indeed), and that is that. Everything else is mere smoke and nonsense. Should we be confronted by those who insist otherwise, I would just say that we repeat the above sentences, and ignore any special pleading, said special pleading usually beginning with the words, "But what about . . ." Once we grant that non-facts trump facts, we have already lost. Once we start playing by their rules, we have already lost.
I suppose it is theoretically possible for reasonable people to disagree over the question of Libby's commutation, given the facts of the matter. Let us, however, discuss the commutation within those parameters. Let us not get dragged into conversations where, through some magical process, all the facts become irrelevant to that eternally unanswerable "but".
