In a stomach-turning piece in Time today, former White House counsel Fred Fielding proudly unmasks himself as the person chiefly responsible, after the former president himself, for preventing Scooter Libby from receiving a presidential pardon in the Plame leak case-a pardon that ought to have been issued at the moment of indictment. Not that there was ever any doubt that it was Fielding who, with the silent acquiescence of chief of staff Josh Bolten and other equally brave souls in the White House, was whispering Libby’s guilt in the president’s ear, and Fielding who, in spite of the strenuous efforts of Dick Cheney to persuade the president of the justice of a pardon, ultimately and triumphantly wrote the recommendation against it. Why Fielding and Bush chose so disgracefully to take the word of blarney-master Tim Russert (reporters never lie?) over that of one of their loyal brothers, and why they chose to sacrifice that brother to the anti-war gods when they knew there was another person, namely Richard Armitage, who’d actually-and admittedly-leaked Valerie Plame’s name to the press are moot questions now, matters between themselves and their confessors. But a few answerable questions do arise. First, is not Fred Fielding still technically George Bush’s counsel when it comes to White House matters? And if so, did he give this story to Time‘s reporters without his client’s authorization and thereby breach attorney-client privilege in an appalling ethical violation for which he should be sanctioned? Or, second, did his old boss know he would be doing some self-aggrandizing sucking up to previously hostile members of the press, and did he grant his full approval for some further maligning of Scooter Libby? For apparently Fielding’s practiced at that sort of thing, as even his friends attest. Says one: “He will slit your throat with a razor blade while he is yawning.” In either shameful case, one must really wonder why this piece, which after all is about old history, is appearing at this moment. And to this question I would suggest the answer is that Fielding-and maybe Bush, as well?-has sniffed the wind and smelled the Bush administration’s blood on it, and perhaps especially Dick Cheney’s blood on it-and wants it firmly established and on the record before the Dem prosecution machine revs up that when it came down to it, he, and his client, were on the right-or make that the left-side of history.
