Twenty one years ago I left South Africa.
Apartheid, in full flourish, was the policy of a regime that was designed by those in power to ensure that they remained there. Ronald Reagan’s policy of "Constructive Engagement" helped to keep it going, providing a global legitimacy.
From 1978 to 1984, South Africa’s Prime Minister, P.W. Botha ruled like a dictator, responsible for the torture and murder of thousands, for which he refused to apologize, even after The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in post-Apartheid South Africa, found him responsible.
Today, as an American, I am embarrassed and ashamed. To be an American.
The President's commuting of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby’s sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice is reminiscent of the abuse of power that typified Apartheid South Africa.
Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for the same reasons Scooter Libby was convicted. Although Clinton’s obstruction related to a sexual indiscretion being investigated by an overzealous prosecutor and hypocrite, Kenneth Starr, the lesson itself was clear. Perjury and obstruction of justice are not acceptable, no matter who you are, and no matter how frivolous, politicized and distracting the underlying investigation.
Scooter Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice was neither frivolous not partisan. It related to an act of treason, which not only threatened, but actually compromised America’s national security. Under a little reported Executive Order which gave Vice President Dick Cheney carte blanche to declassify information classified – supposedly in the interests of national security – the Office of the Vice President leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative specializing in nuclear proliferation, to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Administration’s policy justification for going to war with Iraq.
In September 2003, the President commented: "There are too many leaks of classified information, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."
He also said he was furious about the fact that someone in his Administration leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to discredit Joe Wilson who had warned that the Administration's WMD rationale for going to war -- buttressed by Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of yellowcake from Niger in order to enrich uranium -- was dubious at best.
Until papers filed by Patrick Fitzgerald , the Special prosecutor in the Scooter Libby investigation, revealed that the President himself had authorized selective leaks to the press to refute Wilson’s claims. Only, the leak was re-termed declassification. And a formal declassification only took place ten days after the authorization. According to Fitzgerald's April 5, 2006 filing, Libby has also testified that in July 2003, that then-Counsel to the Vice President, David Addington "opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amount to a declassification of the document."
This President has sent men and women to die under false pretenses, leaked classified information for political purposes, and authorized illegal eavesdropping on Americans in flagrant violation of the constitution.
This Fourth of July, any American who believes in the values that America is supposed to represent, who appreciates the fundamental premise of equal justice under the law, should be as ashamed and embarrassed as I am.
