It was Scooter Libby who introduced me to the Washington horror known as “the breakfast meeting.” That was back in 1996, as I remember. I hadn’t met him before, but I’d just reviewed his novel, The Apprentice, and he sent me a thank-you note, diffidently suggesting that the next time I was in D.C. we might sit down and talk about books for an hour.
Unfortunately, the hour he had in mind was 7:00 to 8:00 A.M., and still sleepy midway through my third cup of coffee, I finally snapped–explaining to him in a snarl the great law that binds all night-owl book readers: Anyone who actually has something to say about the structure of James Joyce’s Ulysses is incapable of saying it before noon. 11:15, in a pinch.
He leaned back in the restaurant booth for an instant, offended, I think–then suddenly laughed and gave me that odd smile I remember best about him, his mouth in a wry twist that showed you the other side of the smooth K Street lawyer: the reader, the novelist, the ironic observer. From then on, we met for late lunches and even later dinners. It was always hard to get him out in the evening: He refused to turn the children over to the babysitter until he’d read them to sleep, which made it 9:00 before he could join us–talking nonstop about books he’d read, their plot devices and narrative techniques, until he finally remembered he had a breakfast meeting with someone from the FCC the next morning, and wrenched himself away.
God, I hate this. The obituary voice, the fond remembrance, the hunt for the telling detail–all the tricks writers use to talk about the newly dead. We used to laugh together about grown men who somehow never managed to shed their boyhood nicknames, but no laughter is left in him. We used to sketch out together ideas for bad mystery thrillers, but no lightness remains. Scooter Libby is a talented, multifaceted man with a sense of public service–and Washington used him as a pawn in a stupid political gambit and swept him from the board. I want to weep when I think that this man was tried and convicted. I want to weep when I think he is likely to go to prison.
For let’s remember what this was all really about. A black spot was being passed from hand to hand in Washington. Somebody was going to end up with it, and Scooter Libby was the unlucky one. Forget the lies Joseph Wilson told; forget the jovial leak from Richard Armitage to Robert Novak that started it all; forget what Scooter said or didn’t say to the grand jury about conversations with reporters. The case was a political trial from the beginning–and the opponents lined up in a properly political way. One side wanted to use Scooter Libby as a step ladder to reach up and pull down someone higher. The other side wanted to make sure that the case ended with Libby.
I never saw much concern from either side about the man himself. I still don’t. In its chortling editorial after the verdict was announced, the New York Times admitted that one of its own reporters had been jailed in the course of the investigation and a general legal respect for reporters’ promises of confidentiality had been forever swept away. You’d think these would be frightening developments for a newspaper. But, no, it turns out the political purpose of Scooter Libby’s prosecution trumps all that. “The potential damage” for the press, the Times agreed, “remains of real concern. But it was still a breath of fresh air to see someone in this administration, which specializes in secrecy, prevarication and evading blame, finally called to account.”
I have several friends–a surprising number with real literary talent–who were invited to help this administration. And each one I urged to accept the appointment. You owe it to your country, I said, particularly in times like these. Public service is a duty you can’t refuse, when your turn comes.
Never again. Bene vixit, bene qui latuit, Ovid once warned ambitious young men about the bloodsports of ancient Roman politics: “He lives well who is well hidden.” Good advice, I suppose. Keep your head down. Don’t look for trouble. Stay under the radar. Cultivate your own garden. It’s just that, until now, I never really believed this was America. I never really believed this was us.
JOSEPH BOTTUM
