Blown Call

Guess I blew my call this weekend that Scooter Libby would be walking. Instead, he was convicted on 4 of 5 counts before the court, and will probably spend a little time in jail.

Probably the best piece I've read on the story though, isn't about the effect on the White House, or how the jury came to their decision, instead it's Howard Kurtz' Media Notes in the Washington Post reminding us that this is how the game is played in DC.

It's not just with this administration, every previous administration, Congress, and different departments all use the media to do their bidding, under the "unnamed sources" mantra.

When a Congressman wants to save a pork project in their district, an unnamed soure will tell the media how some big baddy in government is trying to put people out of work someplace by killing something.

When an agency is trying to sell a hard to sell project, it comes out in the media that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread to try and get some support for it.

The biggest thing to come out of the Libby trial is that we all need to remember, the media works for someone elses agenda quite often, and should be taken with a grain of salt; Bloggers included.

Technorati Tags: Libby, Plame, Perjury, Media

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Picking Nits on a Jury

I'm going to make a prediction today, Scooter Libby will walk in his perjury trial. I say this because generally, after 8 days of deliberation, a jury ends up hung, or acquitting.

In the case of Libby, they are starting to pick nits, asking the judge for the definition of "reasonable doubt" as it relates to his memory of events leading to the Grand Jury inquest.

In the case of Libby, and that requested clarification, my guess is you'll see a hung jury by Wednesday, and a humbled Prosecutor deciding not to refile charges. Patrick Fitzgerald knows that he'll probably get the same results next time if he retries the case.

The request probably points to a few members of the panel who are voting for acquittal being pressured by those voting guilty. By asking for the clarification, the one's who want to vote guilty are (probably) trying to show the others that "reasonable doubt" doesn't mean "any doubt". The problem is, most folks in jury rooms, once they make up their minds, have a hard time changing them based on new definitions being forced on them.

In a perjury trial like this, the prosecution has to prove, beyond that subjective reasonable doubt, that Libby didn't just misspeak at a Grand Jury, but that he intentionally misspoke to them. That's pretty tough when you are talking about people who generally work 15 hour days, and meet dozens of different people and groups per week, and spend hours a day on the phone with various people.

As an example, Monday I'm visiting a company I've been to 3 times since last July. Yet I'm positive I don't know every piece of equipment they have, or all of their special configurations.

Libby is being tried for supposedly hiding exact details of 10 minute conversations 18 months prior to the Grand Jury. Go ahead, think of a 10 minute meeting at work in August 2005, and see if you can remember exactly what it was about, or exactly what you said. I know without looking at past paperwork I can't tell you what equipment I calibrated last October in that lab I mentioned, much less what I talked to their technicians about.

I think that with the reasonable doubt question coming up it shows the jury is worrying about exactly what the Fitzgerald didn't want them to, how hard do you hammer people strictly on memory. As I said at the start of this post, I think that Scooter is going to walk.

Technorati Tags: Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame, Plamegate, Patrick Fitzgerald, Perjury, CIA

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