From
The Carpetbagger Report:
In one of the stranger letters, Mary Matalin and James Carville wrote a letter together, on Matalin’s stationary, praising Libby’s “universal love of families,” and asking Walton to go easy on the man their kids call “Mr. Scooter.”
The Smoking Gun has
lots of highlights from the correspondence, but there was one item that stood out for me: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace contributed a letter of his own. He wrote:
(Libby) impressed me as a team player when addressing issues and with his selfless approach to wide-ranging responsibilities. I especially recall from my meetings with Mr. Libby, that when considering options and courses of action, he always looked for not just what was in the best interests of the country, but also for the right way to proceed — both legally and morally. From my perspective dealing with Mr. Libby on national security issues, he served the United States Government extremely well.
On national security issues? We are talking about the guy who exposed the cover of a covert CIA agent during a time of war and then lied about it, right?
linkFrom The Smoking Gun:
Washington elite petition judge on behalf of convicted Cheney aide JUNE 5--
Donald Rumsfeld,
Henry Kissinger,
Paul Wolfowitz, and
John Bolton top the list of individuals who wrote a federal judge on behalf of former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for lying to investigators and a federal grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. On the following 30 pages you'll find an assortment of letters from former colleagues and friends of Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. The letters, which do not include a missive from Cheney himself, were filed this morning in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.. Included in the correspondence is a letter on former Cheney aide
Mary Matalin's stationery which is signed by her and husband James Carville, the Democratic strategist. Others writing on Libby's behalf included
Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
Richard Perle, former Pentagon adviser;
James Woolsey, ex-CIA director;
Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense;
Christopher Cox, ex-congressman and current Securities and Exchange Commission chairman;
Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic; Washington lawyer and former Nixon counsel
Leonard Garment; former U.S. Senator
Alan Simpson; former Soviet dissident
Natan Sharansky; former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman
Richard Myers; and
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a National Institutes of Health official. Of the 198 letters sent to Judge Reggie Walton, 174 referred positively to Libby, while the balance urged Walton to throw the book at the convicted felon. (30 pages)
Matlin-Carville Letter, Page 1Edited to add: It's one thing to see Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton among a group praising Libby for his role in committing a treasonous act. It's appalling to see the current Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, an ex-CIA director, and the current and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff among them.
Carville! Ugh!