Libby Jury Made Up of Idiots
The more we learn about the Libby jury, the more we hope we're never tried by a jury ofhispeers. From the post-it notes asking " what are the charges again? " to their stupid Valentine's Day shirts (the one lady with enough sense to avoid that awkward mess was kicked off the jury), it's been apparent for weeks that Scooter Libby's fate would be decided by a white-collar DC Apple Dumpling Gang.
Trying to convince us of the jury's intelligence, Eric Lipton at theTimesinstead leaves us more confident than before of their idiocy. Relevant quotes and comments, after the jump.
"I don't think it was an easy decision for any of us," Ms. Russo said. "I think anyone who was in the room when the decision was made saw that the jury was teared up."
Damning a rich bastard to a couple months in a minimum-security federal pen, knowing he'll probably get time off for rehab/good behaviorandthere's a decent chance he'll get a pardon or win an appeal -- very emotional stuff. We're tearing up just thinking about it. We haven't felt like this since the end ofGhost, frankly. Wait, notGhost...GhostRider. Poor Nic Cage, doomed to walk the Earth righting wrongs on his flaming motorcycle for an eternity...just like Scooter Libby.
From early on, he said, he considered Mr. Libby a decent person, worthy of their sympathy. And he wondered why other senior Bush administration officials were not facing trial in the disclosure of a C.I.A. operative's identity.
Once again,not actually the charges.
Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for President Bush, was deemed"credible,"Mr. Collins said, given how "brutally honest" he was, since he testified that reporters would not listen to him when he tried to pitch an article that might support the administration's views.[Emphasis ours.]
Ari Fleischer... credible? How did they manage to find 11 people who never looked at a tv from January 2001 through July 2003?!?
"One of the jurors said, 'If I am told something once, I am likely to forget it,'" Mr. Collins recalled. "'But if I am told it many times, it is much less likely I will forget it. And if I tell it to someone else, that is even more unlikely.'"
Ok, the jury deliberations were apparently scripted by A. A. Milne. That statement is one spoonerism away from being attributed to Billy from the Family Circus.
Is it too late to go back and have Libby's fate be decided by a text messaging campaign? Or a CNN.com instant poll? OrKatherine Harris? None of those options would inspire much more confidence, but they're at least entertaining.
Members of a Sympathetic Jury Describe an Emotional but Inevitable Conclusion [NYT]