Competing Rough Drafts of Libby History

Byron York:

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless.

Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage done to Libby’s case; there are lots of headlines like “Ex-Aide Contradicts Libby” and “Reporter’s Account Hurts Libby’s Defense.”

Here's the latter: today's Reporter's Account Hurts Libby Defense by Carol Leonnig and Amy Goldstein on A1:

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller yesterday helped the prosecutor who landed her in jail and forced her into the witness chair, providing potentially damaging information about the confidential administration source she tried to shield, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby....

However, as York continues:

But each day, the question is not what headline writers are taking from events in the courtroom but what jurors are making of it. Are they seeing an overwhelming case for Libby’s guilt? Or are they seeing a case in which everyone involved seems to have forgotten something — and no one is truly credible? We just don’t know.

The latest witness to contradict Libby and then find her credibility seriously challenged is Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who went to jail for 85 days in an effort to avoid testifying in the case....

To be fair, the Post's Leonnig and Goldstein do eventually reference Libby's attorney challenging Miller's memory--it just isn't the chief frame of the story. Howard Kurtz writes about the problem early and often in his account:

In taking the stand in U.S. District Court against her once-secret source, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Miller found herself answering questions about the very methods that she has spent a professional lifetime concealing. Rather than pointing out flaws in the accounts of public officials, she found herself struggling to explain a spotty memory and to justify why she wrote nothing about the sensitive -- and, as it turned out, classified -- information she had been handed. Once an independent operator who called herself "Miss Run Amok," she disputed what her many critics said was obvious: that Vice President Cheney's former top aide had been trying to manipulate her...

Take your pick--York, Leonnig/Goldstein, Kurtz, Talk Left ....but really everyone knows Tom Maguire's Just One Minute is your friendly local neighborhood location for one-stop shopping.

Comments

[Michael]

My favorite bit from the Libby trial so far was from earlier this week. John Dickerson, covering the story for Slate, finds himself and his alleged conversations discussed at trial and remembers them entirely differently. It is, I think, illustrative of the whole problem with the trial.

http://www.slate.com/id/2158157/entry/2158492/