Most Kossacks are familiar with conservative columnist Thomas Sowell. For newbies who are unfaimiliar with his background you can find his wiki entry here. Sowell is syndicated in a number of daily newspapers, including my own Los Angeles Daily News.
Tuesday Sowell wrote an Op Ed titled "Libby deserves pardon from President Bush". I would link to the article, but neither Sowell's website nor the Daily News has a copy electronically posted. However, the title gives you a pretty good idea where Sowell is headed with the column. A fair use sampling of Sowell's column and my LTE response, which was published today in the Daily News below the fold...
Sowell starts by recounting how he had to file a second report on an auto accident and how lucky he was that he kept a copy of the first report, because gosh darn it, memories fade. And by the way, if the report was made under oath then he could have been prosecuted for perjury if he got it wrong the second time. That is his lead-in to poor Scooter, who testified that he had not leaked Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.
Sowell observes that:
Unfortunately for Scooter Libby, there was testimony from Tim Russert that he himself (sic) did not know that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA at the time of his conversation with Libby.
And yeah, its a bitch when your bestest buddies throw you under the bus:
Ari Fleischer said that Libby mentioned to him that Plame worked for the CIA. This was days before Libby talked to Russer.
And the understatement of the year decade:
It seems clear that Libby had his facts wrong.
Sowell then repeats the Right's favorite talking point regarding Plame:
Valerie PLame was no longer an undercover agent, her identity having already been revealed long before this whole episode. She was now just someone with a desk job at the CIA.
Of course Sowell does not document who had known about Plames identity prior to LIbby's leak. Pretty hard to document, since it is an out and out lie.
Sowell concludes his Op Ed with this dreck:
...Scooter Libby was prosecuted big time for getting his facts wrong. Surely President Bush can pardon this man before leaving office.
I frequently write LTEs to the Daily News. Usually the letters concern local issues. However, Thomas Sowell is one pundit who I simply cannot stand. I have written a number of letters responding to his columns. This was the second or maybe the third that the Daily News has published. So here is my pushback to the Right Wing Echo Chamber, which the Daily News titled "No Pardon for Libby":
Colunmist Thomas Sowell tried to rewrite history while arguing that Scooter Libby should be pardoned. Contrary to Sowell's claim that she was someone with a desk job at the CIA, Valerie Plame was a covert agent running a network dedicted to tracking the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. That network was destroyed and Plame's cover was blown by Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney in direct retribution for her husband's opinion piece in the New York Times exposing the Bush administration's lies about Iraq buying uranium from Niger. Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. He lied to protect Dick Cheney from indictment and conviction. His sentence has already been commucted. He should at least have to live with the conviction hanging over his head for the rest of his life.
I encourage all Kossacks to respond with LTEs when they see the RWEC try to rewrite history and spin the "Bush Legacy". Hopefully, a lot of people read that letter today and said to themselves, "Yeah, thats the way I remember it too. Libby already go off too easy". And yes, I know I have a run-on sentence in the middle of the letter. Deal with it.