Read Redd on Cohen's "Free Libby!"

She got it so right, along with Glenn, on this absurd Cohen column. Richard Cohen should be so embarrassed about this column though I am quite sure that Fred Hiatt is ever so thankful that a “liberal” wrote it and the editorial board of the WAPO didn’t have to.

Here is a taste of what Redd has to say:

Hello again, Richard:

It’s been a while since we’ve corresponded, but I feel the need to, yet again, point out the obvious. As I wrote to you all the way back in October of 2005:

If you don’t know any actual prosecuting attorneys, let me help you out. For people who uphold the law as their vocation — and there are an awful lot of them in this country who take their jobs very seriously — putting people in jail for breaking the law, and seeking justice, is their job.

Sure, they are mean to the jerks who break the law. (btw, these people are called criminals.) These criminals may be poor, uneducated and even mentally unstable — and sometimes they are wealthy, highly educated and people you seem to want to continue to hang out with at cocktail parties.

Here’s a clue: the laws apply to EVERYONE, across the board, whether they are rich and powerful or poor and powerless. (You might want to read up on what Martha Stewart has been doing for the last year or so. Might be illuminating on this point.)

This goes for ALL the jerks who break ALL the laws, not just the laws you happen to have thought were important at the time you turned in your column….

Oh, and in case you were wondering how Judy Miller got caught up in all of this mess, we prosecutors like to call it “accessory” — as in potentially prosecutable along with all the other folks involved if she was aiding and abetting the conspiracy to commit a crime. Poor Judy, carried water for people breaking the law and got caught. How dare a prosecutor want to see her treated like every other living, breathing citizen in this country?!? (Okay, I’m not really outraged, but I was trying to appear empathetic to you here. How am I doing?)

Perhaps you journalists (if I can be so bold as to count you among them) ought to reconsider being human shields for people who use you to commit odious crimes, and then leave you to rot in jail because they are too craven to accept responsibility for what they have done.

Unfortunately the realization that the laws ought to apply to everyone, regardless of social standing, job description and the number of mutual friends inside the Beltway that you may have with a particular multiple-federal-felony-convicted former Vice Presidential minion, didn’t quite sink into your thick noggin, because today you wrote this:

With the sentencing of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker — Richard Armitage of the State Department — but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off….

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive — a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act. The mere arrival of a form letter from the IRS will give any sane person a touch of angina.

I don’t expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath — not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely. (emphasis mine)

I want to be certain that I understand what you are saying here: lying under oath is a crime and should be punished. But Scooter Libby shouldn’t be punished for his lying under oath because he was just playing politics, and thus should be excused from any and all crimes committed under some sort of “lights out political shield.” Is that about right?

Go and read the rest, as naturally, she takes him apart. He is so not armed for this fight!

Do you think that the average voter thinks that the Government’s Illegal behavior is: “As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off?” Because you know us folks can’t handle the truth of how our Government is screwing us! Oh, and I guess we would rather not know!

The Beltway Pundit Class, liberal or otherwise, apparently doesn’t care if they have any credibility at all. Exhibit A would be: Richard Cohen of WAPO!