I've seen people brush up against this in some of the open threads, but I have yet to see anything concrete so I figured I'd put up a diary. This could potentially be a wonderful bit of framing if people can pull it off. Specifically, I'm just trying to collect a bunch of ideas from
this thread and put them in their own diary.
Various Republican talking heads have been parroting the idea that because Libby wasn't indicted for an actual crime but rather lying during the investigation of the crime as part of the cover-up, that it somehow exonerates him. Fitzgerald himself made a comparison to kicking sand in the face of the umpire, but there's an even more obvious comparison and one that's potentially much more damage if the frame can stick.
Here's the frame: Why not start referring to that Republican talking point as "The Al Capone Defense"?
A lot of people have pointed to Republican talking point about Libby not being directly accused of a crime and several people have mentioned that Al Capone was finally convicted of tax evasion instead of the numerous killings, protection rackets, rumrunning, etc. that he pulled of so well. Any (reasonably) literate American understands that the reason Capone was convicted of tax evasion was because witnesses to any of his other crimes seemed to have trouble showing up at the stand for, ahem, various reasons. The parallel to Libby is, as Fitzgerald mentioned in his press conference, there's no way to convict on the actual crime if the truth is being blocked at every opportunity.
This frame meshes perfectly with the Culture of Corruption idea that's been floated around and the use of both will help to reinforce the other. Obviously, the plan is not just to hang the specific wrongdoings on them (there are just way too many), but to build up a consistent theme and at this point the idea of tying everything back to corruption and racketeering is looking mighty easy.
Some samples:
"Sorry, Tim, but Libby's 'Al Capone Defense' just won't fly."
"So, Brit, what you're saying is that Al Capone was not a gangster because they convicted him of tax evasion?"
"Tucker ... just shut up, dumbass." Er, sorry, deviated from the script.
I think this could be an incredibly powerful frame if it gets repeated enough; useful in the short term for Libby, and possibly Rove, and it helps to lay the foundation for painting the Republicans as the organized crime family that they, well, already are.