Scooter Libby was sentenced on Tuesday to thirty months in jail and a $250,000 fine. And I can’t much stand the bloodsports of American politics anymore.
At the time of his conviction, I wrote a small essay about my friendship with Scooter¯others knew him better, but we had a genuine literary friendship, free from the politics that infects too much conversation in America these days. And I, along with many others, wrote a letter to the sentencing judge pleading for mercy. Bill Kristol has perhaps the strongest reaction to this week’s imposition of an enormous sentence. And Kristol’s furious indictment of President Bush for his failure to act seems exactly right.
But, then, why should the president act, when even much of the conservative press seems willing to forget the man who is Scooter Libby. Here, for instance, is the reaction on the webpages of National Review : “Libby? Heck, he’ll be all right, and a taste of low life might educate him some.” Rich? Ramesh? Jonah? Jay? Kathryn? Kate? Are any of you reading what your writers are saying? This is vile.
I was so angry and hurt that I thought I would write that I would never read National Review again. But it isn’t true. The world is too small not to continue to know the magazine, to read it, and to interact with it.
Still, this much is true: From the moment Scooter Libby was indicted, all the way down to this moment of his sentencing, I have judged the character of many acquaintances in the worlds of writers, public intellectuals, and conservative politicians¯their courage and their trustworthiness¯by a simple measure: whether or not they stood up for Scooter Libby.
The person who could write that line for National Review ¯”Libby? Heck, he’ll be all right, and a taste of low life might educate him some”¯may be an interesting writer, and we might find that he’s a fun person to spend a little time with. But we also know now that he is not trustworthy when trust really matters, and we know that he is not brave.
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