Fact and Fiction about the Libby Verdict

I welcome the jury's verdict. It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics. Lewis Libby has been convicted of perjury, but his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney's role in this sordid affair. " Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

This trial provided a troubling picture of the inner workings of the Bush Administration. The testimony unmistakably revealed – at the highest levels of the Bush Administration – a callous disregard in handling sensitive national security information and a disposition to smear critics of the war in Iraq. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Hence like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others. Whitaker Chambers



The statements by the two Democratic leaders in Congress reflect their own political fantasies and those of the Left in general, not the actuality of the verdict.

Libby was convicted on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. This conviction had nothing to do with manipulation of intelligence or mishandling of sensitive national security information nor did it reveal anything sinister about the inner workings of the Bush Administration. Whether Libby actually lied to the grand jury or Fitzgerald is of no consequence to the Left. They only care about so called "higher truths" the verdict supposedly reveals about their accusations that Bush lied the country into war.

Patrick Fitzgerald himself said that his investigation was not about the Iraq War.

Leave aside the argument over whether Libby really lied and perjured himself or had a faulty memory, like many of the reporters who testified for the prosecution.

Let us take a look at the truths we do know and how Reid and Pelosi's fantastical statements hold up.

Joseph Wilson, the man who started this whole sordid affair took the pages of the New York Times opinion page, and accused the administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. In his book The Politics of Truth, Wilson claims that he was sent to Niger at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Further, Wilson claims that his report on his trip to Niger debunked the so-called "16 words" in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq had sought enriched Uranium from Niger. Wilson also claims that his wife Valerie Plame Wilson an employee of the CIA’s counter proliferation division had no role in sending him the Niger.

Two separate reports The Senate Intelligence Report and Lord Butler's report prove beyond all doubt that the real liar in this case is Wilson. Both the Senate Intelligence Report and Butler report show that the "16 words" in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address were in fact "well founded." The Senate report also states, “the report on the former ambassador’s trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any of the analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal.”

The report further states, “The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policy makers that it had sent some one to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador’s findings.”

Here we have two independent reports that prove Joseph Wilson lied in both his New York Times op-ed and his book.

In response to Wilson, the administration declassified and released portions of national security documents to refute a war critic who lied to the public.
Wilson, with the help of David Corn from The Nation stoked the fire even more when he claimed that the Bush administration orchestrated the “outing” of his wife, who he claimed was a covert CIA agent.

Here again the truths we do know show that Wilson and the Left’s fantastical claims do not pass the smell test.

We know that the source of Robert Novak’s column, which identified Valerie Plame was not anyone in the administration but anti-war State Department official Richard Armitage.

We know that the Justice Department knew Armitage was Novak’s source before it handed the case to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. We know that Fitzgerald knew this same fact as well.

So given the facts of this whole affair, how do Reid, Pelosi and the Left square their fantastical statements, which they believe are the truth with what we know to be truth

Reid, Pelosi, and the Left are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.

Welcome to the The Main Adversary

Welcome to my first blog. I started this blog like most other folks who start blogs--to put forth my views. The Main Adversary will focus on politics and history. However, I will have content on sports and entertainment.

A little about me and this Blog:

My name is Mark Newgent. I live in Baltimore, MD with my lovely wife and beautiful daughter. I work for The Johns Hopkins University. My first love is history, My academic training is in history, but I work in the publishing field. My passion for history fueled my interest in politics. My base of knowledge is modern American history especially World War II, the Cold War and American Communism.

My politics:
My political views have matured over the last decade from liberal to conservative.
My political maturation process began with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and accelerated after 9/11. My political maturation was directly proportional to increasing my historical knowledge. In short, I started thinking instead of feeling. That is, my liberalism was based on how I felt about political issues or historical events, not on any rational thought about them. I was able to shed the childish liberal=good/conservative=bad mindset. Once I started thinking I was able to see that conservatives and Republicans were not the greedy racist, puppy killers that the Left and the media make them out to be.

I love this country. I believe like Abraham Lincoln that America represents the “the last best hope.” I have always thought that even when I was a liberal. What bothered me was why so many other liberals and leftists did not share this view. Like Ronald Reagan I wondered why I voted for people who did not believe in the same things I do. Reagan said the Democratic Party left him. In my case I was never a part of it, only I did not know it yet.

Ronald Regan is one of three people who had a strong impact on my political maturation. The other two are Whitaker Chambers and David Horowitz. Chambers a former CPUSA courier who assisted Soviet espionage, and Horowitz an intellectual founder of the New Left that nearly destroyed this country, both underwent political conversions to the Right. I do not put myself in the same category as Chambers and Horowitz—not many can—but their stories had a major impact on my thinking.

So there you have it. If you are reading this blog and wondering where I am coming from, well there it is.


Why “The Main Adversary”:

The title of this blog comes from my interest in history, especially Communist history and the Cold War. The Main Adversary was the code name assigned to the United States by Felix Dzerzhinsky, chief of the Cheka, (the first Soviet secret police and the folks who brought you the Great Terror), in the early days of the Bolshevik rule after the revolution. Early on Lenin and Dzerzhinsky understood that the United States would be the main enemy against world-wide communist revolution. Today, the threat is different, but to the Islamo-fascists America is The Main Adversary.



Sports:
I am a passionate fan of three teams, the Washington Redskins, Maryland Terrapins, and the Boston Red Sox. I have my own personal Axis-of-Evil: the Dallas Cowboys, Duke Blue Devils (I despise UVA as well) and the New York Yankees. I grew up in College Park, Maryland home of the Terps and a stone’s throw from old RFK stadium. I was very fortunate that during formative years the Redskins won three Super Bowls and were one of the premier teams in the NFL. Sadly, Joe Gibbs has not been able to resurrect those winning ways…yet! As a teenager I spent a lot of time hanging around the Maryland campus, I got to meet famous Terps like Boomer Esiason and Len Bias. I can still remember watching Lefty Driesell walking on to the court at Cole Field House as the band played “Hail to the Chief.” The death of Len Bias still makes me sad, to think of what could have been. When Maryland won it all in 2002 Lenny was on all our minds as Juan Dixon tossed the ball into the air in victory. Growing up near DC in the 1980s and early 90s we did not have a baseball team, sure the Orioles were up the road in Baltimore, but outside of Cal Ripken the O’s did not offer much. As a kid I loved Roger Clemens so I loved the Red Sox. People look at me funny when they ask if I’m from New England when they learn I’m not from New England. Look 1986 still bothers me, and I was literally depressed in 2003 when Arron #@%^*^% Boone hit that homer in Game 7. On the other hand 2004 and the Yanks delivering up the greatest choke in sports history still brings a smile to my face.

In my politics I moved away from emotionalism, I can’t say the same for the teams I love. When it comes to the Skins, Terps, and Sox my emotions run high.


Entertainment:

I watch too much TV and way too many movies. The fetching Mrs. Newgent looked dimly on my subscription to Direct TV. But I’m a child of the 80s and pop culture I can’t help it. My two favorite shows are Battlestar Galactica and The Wire.