Boo-boo Brooks

David Brooks had a chance to eat some humble pie yesterday on the Newshour after his neighbor Larry Johnson hand-delivered David Corn's latest skewering of Brooks's latest column reminding us that all of this stuff about Scooter is much ado about nothing. Our mainstream press, with very few exceptions, has done an abysmal job of real reporting the last ten years and columnists like Brooks are so in the tank with the Republicans it isn't surprising anymore that they do things like conflating this whole Libby mess with anything Clinton (lying about blowjobs and Marc Rich). What Larry Johnson did is hilarious if not necessary, but apparently Brooks is so intellectually dishonest that facts just don't matter.

But let me throw in here, just because in this little corner of the blogosphere it is the only way I will be able to take Brooks to task. Here is another choice quote from the Newshour:

JUDY WOODRUFF: But people really are angry about what the president did.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, because it -- it is about the war. That's part of it, and because emotions are stoked about the war.

But here is where I think the parallel with the Clinton years is the same. You have people who oppose this administration, who are outraged by what this administration has done in Iraq, as some people were outraged with what the Clinton administration did, just as an existential matter. They assume there is some dark conspiracy there at the heart of this administration.

An investigation is launched, which does not find dark conspiracy. It finds some minor or some serious misdeeds, but not a dark conspiracy. So, then they immediately jump to the conclusion that, not only is there is a dark rottenness at the administration, but there's a dark cover-up of the rottenness.

And, so, no matter what happens, there is this conviction, which is, to me, a partisan conviction that there is some rottenness, and, if we didn't find it, it must still be there.

And that is just partisanship, obstructing....

Conspiracy defined:

con·spir·a·cy /kənˈspɪrəsi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhn-spir-uh-see] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -cies.
1. the act of conspiring.
2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.
4. Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.
5. any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

Libby may not have been charged with being part of a conspiracy, but what we know from the trial testimony is that there was a conspiracy to out Valerie Plame and discredit Joe Wilson.