WAPO GOOD, BAD,...

WAPO GOOD, BAD, AND FUNNY. While the White House anxiously awaits word on Scooter Libby's legal fate, it's really worth checking out Dan Froomkin's column from yesterday at washingtonpost.com, which focuses on the Cheney angle in Fitzgerald's closing yesterday. For a little comic relief, read the long Outlook columnby Victoria Toensing in the WaPo on Sunday, which basically smears everyone outside the White House involved in the CIA leak investigation and rests its argument that no crime could have been committed in the case on ignoring the fact that Fitzgerald was investigating possible violations of statutes beyond the Intelligence Identities Protections Act (IIPA) (not to mention making a contentious, questionable interpretation of IIPA itself, notwithstanding her participation as a congressional staffer in its original drafting). Then look at the first question she was asked during her online chatat the Post online during the lunch break yesterday:

Washington: You were sitting at the defense lawyers' table at this morning's session of the trial, were you not?

Does that mean you are part of the defense team? Shouldn't that have been mentioned with your Outlook article?

Victoria Toensing: I'm not a part of the defense team -- there was an overflow, we were in the overflow room and lawyers can sit at that table. There were other lawyers there who were not part of the defense team, like Jake Stein.

There was an overflow: a very convincing answer. The point is not that Toensing was part of the defense team, but that Toensing is a well-known Republican operative who has been a part of the public relations defense of Libby in the media, so it is not in the least surprising that she would sit with the defense to watch the trial. Why she still gets to present herself merely as a Washington lawyer, as the byline on her column identifies her, is beyond me -- though it is no longer surprising that the Post would publish this piece in its non-news section; the Post's editorial board been harshly and unjustly critical of Fitzgerald's investigation and Joe Wilson and the rest for quite some time.

When a questioner sought to follow up, asking Toensing, "Did you communicate at all with [Libby pr person Barbara] Comstock or others working on behalf of Libby about your Washington Post piece before it was published?" Toensing gave a classic non-denial denial: "I did not talk to Barbara Comstock about this op-ed. I've been writing op-eds on this matter for two years, prior to Comstock or anybody being hired by Scooter Libby. But I am friends with her socially, and I'm not going to stop seeing her socially for three or four months." Part of Libby's defense fund's job is to mount a public relations effort on Libby's behalf, and there's nothing wrong with that; Libby is fortunate to have powerful enough friends to mount this effort. But the public should know when that's what we're getting.

--Jeff Lomonaco