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Bill Evans Accepts His Lifetime Achievement Award
My colleague Bill Evans has had a long life in the dance world. When I was in Buffalo a few weeks ago, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the field. I asked if I might have a copy of his acceptance speech to share with all of you, because I was so moved and grateful for his contexting of what I do in the world we share, and what I do here, at the DCP:
![bevans22[1].jpg](http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/bevans22[1].jpg)
Thank you, Sara Lee.
Last April, to celebrate my 65th birthday, I performed solo concerts at SUNY Brockport, where I am a Visiting Professor. My friend Diane McGhee told me that she found those performances bittersweet; she was right, I think. My dances expressed both the pleasure and the pain, the triumph and the defeat, the joy and the sadness of the life I have lived. It is the bitterness, perhaps, that forces me to grab hold of the sweetness that life has brought me and to be grateful for it.
Sweet, indeed, is the warmth I feel this evening, as friends and peers recognize my contributions to dance education. I thank my treasured friend Cheryl Adams (for nominating me) and the NDEO Awards Committee (for their endorsement)!
I accept this acknowledgement humbly and gratefully.
You are my people! My heart is full, and I shall cherish this moment, this evening and this wonderful conference for the rest of my life.
Nonetheless, I can’t shake off the crushing sadness I feel for our sisters and brothers of the Gulf Coast and their devastating losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Those tragic occurrences have forced me to recognize acutely the desperate plight of the poor and disenfranchised in the most powerful nation on earth.
Those cataclysmic events and the inconceivable suffering they have caused have startled me into affirming daily my profound gratitude for the comfort and safety I can so easily take for granted.
Sweet indeed is the experience of attending this conference—of being informed, stimulated, entertained, provoked and reassured in session after session given with such care and generosity by all of you presenters. I thank each one of you for sharing your knowledge and your passion, and I congratulate every person in the room tonight for doing all it took to find the resources, to cover your workload and family responsibilities and to get yourself here.
My heartfelt thanks to Tressa and Terri, for working beyond the limits of exhaustion and organizing this conference for us so beautifully.
My deepest gratitude to Jane, Rima and Sara Lee for pushing beyond the limits of what is possible for mere mortals, so that there will be a National Dance Education Organization.
And yet, even as I indulge in the joy of being at this amazing conference, a part of me cannot ignore the bitterness of forces that are threatening educational values, personal freedoms and equal opportunities that have made significant achievement by somebody like me possible. I believe that we are in the midst of a corporate takeover of our government and much of our culture, and that the American people are being manipulated with distortions of the truth and outright lies, as more and more of the resources of our country and our world are being systematically shifted into the greedy hands of the mega-rich. As an artist and educator, I must express my despair and my profound concern for our future.
· And yet, when I go to work in the mornings at SUNY Brockport, and teach Modern Technique to our 29 new dance majors (several of whom are here this evening), my heart fills with an overwhelming assurance that everything is going to be OK….better than OK — GREAT. Jane Bonbright told us earlier today that she has the best job in the world. Well, Jane, I do too. I am blessed to have the opportunity to get to know, to guide and to share my knowledge with young artists who passionately love what they do and are willing to commit their lives to doing it better, even though they know the challenges will be enormous and the chances for financial reward minute. These young dancers are courageous, determined and vibrant; working with them rekindles my own passion for dance and allows me to rediscover myself and the work I do through their fresh eyes.
· I have been a dance teacher for 52 years. I am fortunate to have recognized my calling very early, and to have had countless opportunities throughout those years to do the thing I love most, in so many corners of the world. My former colleague Jennifer Predock-Linnell calls me the Johnny Appleseed of Modern Dance. My long-time associate Kitty Daniels has said that I live not in Seattle, or—more recently—not in Albuquerque, or—now—not in Brockport, but in the world of dance. I was quoted almost 30 years ago by Dance Magazine as saying that “The real reason I dance is that I want to explode.” What I was trying to express is that I want to be everywhere, and to dance everywhere and to encourage people everywhere I go to love dance and to dance themselves.
And yet, despite the fact that I have danced all my life and have loved dance all my life, I was not able to love myself for much of my life. That inability to feel that I was OK, caused me to subconsciously undermine my own success in the world and to suffer incalculable loss and pain.
From the mid-70s through the early 80’s, the Bill Evans Dance Company experienced phenomenal success. I assembled an incredible group of highly skilled, expressive and devoted former students who became a dazzling ensemble. We were the most-booked dance company in the country for several years. I received a Guggenheim fellowship, numerous fellowships and grants from the NEA and considerable state, municipal and private funding. Young dancers from all over the country moved to Seattle to study with us.
In short, I had worked very, very hard, and received everything I had ever wanted—except the ability to enjoy it.
Kids of my generation who were born gay grew up with a cellular conviction that we were not good enough. Countless unspoken messages from parents and other loved ones, and thousands of spoken or shouted slurs and insults from peers, convinced us that that we should feel ashamed of who we are, and that no amount of hard work and achievement could ever make us worthy.
Finally, in my mid-40s, my years of silent self-loathing caught up to me and precipitated the dismantling of my company, my school and a 17-year personal relationship.
I was stunned by those losses into finally facing the demons that had tortured me since childhood, and into learning to understand that I am (and always was) a good person.
In many ways, I consider that my most significant lifetime achievement.
My journey over the past twenty years has allowed me to become a catalyst for positive change among others in my various corners of the world. I now know what it means to be happy, and I can find remembered joy and satisfaction even in the accomplishments of my former self.
You ARE my people. The dance education community has always welcomed me, not as a marginalized, hyphenated, gay-American, but as a regular human being who happens to have born gay. In a very real way, it was my dance teachers who saved me from more serious self-destruction and gave me a place in which I could feel safe and valued.
Sweet, indeed, are memories of my beloved teachers, mentors and collaborators. Many of you are here this evening and I wish that I had time to thank you all individually in this address. Each has helped me lead a more purposeful life, and learn to more effectively serve my students, colleagues and profession.
Most of all, I want to thank my life partner, Don Halquist, for traveling with me these past 20 years. He is my best friend, my biggest fan, my most honest critic and an extraordinary, complex, brilliant and compassionate human being.
(Here Bill sang and danced):
(Music starts)
Here I go again…
Back at N D E O again…
All aglow again…
Takin’ a chance on DANCE.
_______________________
Here I glide again…
Don Halquist by my side again…
Full of pride again…
Takin’ a chance on Love/ I mean DANCE.
I started life without answers…
And no self esteem…
Through my years among dancers…
I’ve become part of a national team.
_______________________________
Thanks for honoring me…
With this award so graciously…
I’ll cherish it eternally…
Because you are all people I love.
Great piece, Karen
Bill Evans the dancer used to perform here with Bill Evans the musician, who is local. We are also the home city of Mark Morrison. As I was soaking in the tub, I was thinking what a shame that countries such as Canada receive more government arts sponsorship, including for film. Go to opera or symphony or theater or an exhibit here & it's sponsored by Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft - for a tax break. On the other hand, I wouldn't want this current government to sponsor arts. It would be like the period when Hitler was in power and everything had to be literal and representational, or was abolished as "decadent art." You only have to go on W's website to see him give a video tour of his western art to see the parallel. When Maureen Dowd asked him his favorite cultural event he said, "Baseball?"
When Maureen Dowd asked him his favorite cultural event he said, "Baseball?"
Posted by: DiAnne at October 29, 2005 10:55 AM
Oh, no....He did not really say that...
Posted by Karen at October 29, 2005 10:25 AM
Karen,
Thank you for sharing Bill's story with us. He was fortunate to have found his calling early on.
I myself love to dance, but found interpretive dance very challenging. I belonged to a group a few years back where we danced to Hebrew music, and used hand and foot steps from Israel and Yemen. It was interpretive dance.
You know, and Bill acknowledged too that he knows countless people who give their all to their dance. They become the instrument and their energy, and abandon of insecurity and self consciousness, become the dance. They become as one in that art form.
One dance we were learning and planning to give a huge recital with, was quite complex (for us) and we practiced almost every weeknight and all day Saturdays to synchronise our movements for
over a month. We got so tired (I lost 11 lbs. during those rehearsals) and one of our dancers literally had her legs give out on her, she couldn't do it any longer. Half of us were in tears because on the eve of the recital none of us
knew our parts good enough. We were going the wrong way, putting out the wrong arm or foot, et.
Some were in tears, I was petrified that we wouldn't pull it off without a flaw.
We got out there and did it perfectly for the first time ever opening night!
Karen,
How does your experience in Dance help you with us?
"I very much doubt they will be able to repair the damage," said Tom De Luca, a professor of political science at Fordham University. "Once you lose credibility, it's almost impossible to get it back."
More than Bush's credibility is on the line. White House officials face questions about their blanket denials that anyone in the White House was involved in the Plame affair, statements that now appear at odds with the facts.
Democrats were quick to portray Libby's indictment as yet another example of the GOP's broader ethical woes, a theme they have been trying to promote as the backdrop to the coming midterm election campaign. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a short statement saying, "The criminal indictments of a top White House official mark a sad day for America and another chapter in the Republicans' culture of corruption."
But Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) echoed Democrats' complaints that Americans deserve better from White House staffers and urged Bush to condemn Libby more forcefully because he had campaigned in 2000 as someone who would provide a sharp contrast to the tumult of the Clinton years.
"They wanted the president to restore honor and integrity to the White House," Shays said. "Whatever agenda the president wants to pursue, if he hasn't reestablished a strong ethical standard, he's going to fail. . . . Americans don't like to be lied to."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802150_pf.html
Posted by Karen at October 29, 2005 10:25 AM
Well, that made me cry. I'm sobbing like a baby. Please tell Bill Evans thank you, for myself, a straight American who needs help to understand, and for those I love so much who are gay. Every time someone like Bill has the courage to love himself and live free, he helps all of us. He helps us to open our minds, free ourselves, increase our love circles, and most important, to accept and honor and rejoice in all of Creation, with all it's complexities and surprises.
People like Bill Evans, and I might add David Brock here, are precious gifts to humanity.
Truth Shall Prevail
Your question to Karen is a good one!
I remember on the Kerry blog one of the first things I read that she wrote was about "movement choirs."
Who's on First?
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
It was bracing to see the son of a New York doorman open the door on the mendacious Washington lair of the Lord of the Underground.
But this Irish priest of the law, Patrick Fitzgerald, neither Democrat nor Republican, was very strict, very precise. He wasn't totally gratifying in clearing up the murkiness of the case, yet strangely comforting in his quaint black-and-white notions of truth and honor (except when his wacky baseball metaphor seemed to veer toward a "Who's on first?" tangle).
"This indictment's not about the propriety of the war," he told reporters yesterday in his big Eliot Ness moment at the Justice Department. The indictment was simply about whether the son of an investment banker perjured himself before a grand jury and the F.B.I.
Scooter does seem like a big fat liar in the indictment. And not a clever one, since his deception hinged on, of all people, the popular monsignor of the trusted Sunday Church of Russert. Does Scooter hope to persuade a jury to believe him instead of Little Russ?
Good luck.
There is something grotesque about Scooter's hiding behind the press with his little conspiracy, given that he's part of an administration that despises the press and tried to make its work almost impossible.
Mr. Fitzgerald claims that Mr. Libby hurt national security by revealing the classified name of a CIA officer. "Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life," he said.
He was not buying the arguments on the right that Mrs. Wilson was not really undercover or was under "light" cover, or that blowing her cover did not hurt the CIA
"I can say that for the people who work at the CIA and work at other places, they have to expect that when they do their jobs that classified information will be protected," he said, adding: "They run a risk when they work for the CIA that something bad could happen to them, but they have to make sure that they don't run the risk that something bad is going to happen to them from something done by their own fellow government employees."
To protect a war spun from fantasy, the Bush team played dirty. Unfortunately for them, this time they Swift-boated an American whose job gave her legal protection from the business-as-usual smear campaign.
The back story of this indictment is about the ongoing Tong wars of the CIA, the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon: the fight over who lied us into war. The CIA, after all, is the agency that asked for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate how one of its own was outed by the White House.
The question Mr. Fitzgerald repeatedly declined to answer yesterday - Dick Cheney's poker face has finally met its match - was whether this stops at Scooter.
No one expects him to "flip," unless he finally gets the sort of fancy white-collar criminal lawyer that The Washington Post said he is searching for - like the ones who succeeded in getting Karl Rove off the hook, at least for now - and the lawyer tells Scooter to nail his boss to save himself.
But what we really want to know, now that we have the bare bones of who said what to whom in the indictment, is what they were all thinking there in that bunker and how that hothouse bred the idea that the way out of their Iraq problems was to slime their critics instead of addressing the criticism. What we really want to know, if Scooter testifies in the trial, and especially if he doesn't, is what Vice did to create the spidery atmosphere that led Scooter, who seemed like an interesting and decent guy, to let his zeal get the better of him.
Mr. Cheney, eager to be rid of the meddlesome Joe Wilson, got Valerie Wilson's name from the CIA and passed it on to Scooter. He forced the CIA to compromise one of its own, a sacrifice on the altar of faith-based intelligence.
Vice spent so much time lurking over at the CIA, trying to intimidate the analysts at Langley into twisting the intelligence about weapons, that he should have had one of his undisclosed locations there.
This administration's grand schemes always end up as the opposite. Officials say they're promoting national security when they're hurting it; they say they're squelching terrorists when they're breeding them; they say they're bringing stability to Iraq when the country's imploding. (The U.S. announced five more military deaths yesterday.)
And the most dangerous opposite of all: W. was listening to a surrogate father he shouldn't have been listening to, and not listening to his real father, who deserved to be listened to.
DiAnne at October 29, 2005 01:50 PM
Thanks!
Oohh, a Maureen Dowd column!
Thanks, DiAnne. Don't suppose you have the WMD column, too? I really wanted to read that one. Alas, can't pay the unreasonable fee!
PS Yes, Andree, I got your email! I'm sending something snail mail, you should get it soon!
Amy
If I come across the WMD one, I'll post it.
Here is more Maureen Dowd on W:
He hasn't gone out to see a movie in the last 5 7ears. He likes Van Morrison. The last actress who made his heart race was Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. He doesn't identify with any literary heroies, but is drawn to Paul Newman's defiance in Cool Hand Luke and Jack Nicholson's irreverence. He loved Cats.
In an interview about culture, W gamely concedes there are yawning gaps. Baseball, he says, is his favorite "cultural experience." (Like his father, he views cultural questions as some kind of psychoanalysis).
He has one word for Opera. "No."
He likes "nice quiet jazz on the radio."
He went to one ballet and was "amazed by the athleticism."
He doesn't watch TV series, just news and sports.
"Culturally adrift," he says, making a funny face. "Occasionally I'll cruise into an A&E biography. The last one I saw was about me."
He says he's usually asleep by Leno and Letterman, but adds, "They're actually very funny. Even at my own expense."
His first date with Laura: putt putt golf.
Literary preferences: "I've always like John La Care, Le Carrir, or however you pronounce his name. I'm mainly a history person."
Movies: "Not too much. I like 'em ok. I haven't been to a movie theater since 've been governor. We occasionally rent movies. We've got a Blockbuster card." He liked "Saving Private Ryan."
"Laura and I were talking about the last time we'd gone to a movie. I think it was the day Ann Richards called me a jer. it was "Forrest Gump"
Has he ever censored his twins movie picks? "I can' think of anything. Uh Oh, a giant hole in the net of censorship."
In GQ: he said when he was at Yale in the sixties he did not share the musical tastes of the counterculture. he said he liked the Beatles before "their wierd, psychedulic period." Asked who was his favorite Beatle, he said "the first drummer." "As you know I was a fraternity man at Yale. I had parties. We had a lot of groups come in. I just was not, I mean, I like music. But I'm not a great aficionado of music."
Would he set a tone in the WH closer to Pablo Casals or Bill's Kenny G: "You know we've had Lyle Lovett come to the mansion to play. I probably won't be spending alot of time making the list up. I'll delegate."
He sometimes waggles his hips on stage. Does he like to dance? "No, it's not a religious thing. I just don't dance. I don't go to dances and I don't socialize very much."
His perfect day would include running, fishing and watching sports on TV and bed by ten.
Better be sitting when you hear this doozy, folks!
Last night in my canvassing, I ran into a neoCON up close and personal! (Please, please tell me it's not contagious!)
At anyrate, he told me that 'we' (democrats and/or progressives) are in deep doodoo.
Why? You might ask...Is it because of the bad economy? Is it because we have an incompetent administration and we're doomed to freeze, starve, and run out of gas? Is it because we have a media that spins lies almost as fast as the neoCON party and this administration?
Nope...to all of the above!
We are in deep doo doo according to this neoCON party because the Democratic party is becoming a socialist party and a communist party!
Who'da thought that?!!!
... because the Democratic party is becoming a socialist party and a communist party!
Posted by: sparrow at October 29, 2005 02:50 PM
My neonut father-in-law uses the commy socialist line all the time... methinks O'Lielly and/or Limpball use it all the time, cuz the party faithful repeat it ad nauseum whenever they are pressed on anything.
Wonder what this means for the big social at the community church?
Fascistnating
Posted by: monkey at October 29, 2005 03:10 PM
Makes you wonder what they think about the media brain washing out here.
I guess they missed their lessons on what one party and no watchdog media is called.
Juan Cole: All the Vice President's Men
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905X.shtml
The ideologues in Cheney's inner circle drummed up a war. Now their zealotry is blowing up in their faces.
Sparrow
Back in the 1970s my landlady whispered to me quite confidentially that Communists were infiltrating the Catholic Church.
Later on, I learned that she thought we were all wrapped up in the American Indian Movement because some of my brothers' friends who were Native American had visited.
Some people definitely have alternate realities!
P.S. I think they are definitely barking up the wrong tree!
Good ones from Wm Rivers Pitt and I DO send him money now. I hope he gets an answer from Senator Kerry's office about having a Q/A session about the proposed Iraq exit plan where the soluton is via diplomacy not primarily military.
By the way, 3 more military killed in Iraq now.
& terrorist attacks in India.
Joseph C. Wilson IV | Our 27 Months of Hell
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905A.shtml
Joseph Wilson, the diplomat whose wife's name was leaked by Bush administration officials, makes his case for feeling vindicated by Friday's indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Wilson goes on to describe the, "two-year smear campaign orchestrated by senior officials in the Bush White House against my wife and me."
At Least 7 in Cabinet Knew of Plame's ID
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905B.shtml
At least seven Bush administration officials outside the CIA knew Valerie Plame was a CIA employee before the disclosure of her name in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003, according to the indictment Friday of I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby.
Libby Lawyer Hints at Defense Strategy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905C.shtml
The lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide has begun to outline a possible criminal defense that is a tradition in Washington scandals: A busy official immersed in important duties cannot reasonably be expected to remember details of long-ago conversations.
Post your wishes for PCDoc's birthday in the DCP family forum...
http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=926
Good article/interview in the most recent New Yorker with Brent Scowcroft...You have to purchase (or subscribe to) this great magazine to get the whole article, but you can read a Q&A with the author to get an idea of how much Scowcroft disagrees with 43's Iraqi war and how this regime has shut out his sage advice...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/051031on_onlineonly01
What's not in the online version is the complete discussion about why 41 didn't "finish" the war and topple Hussein. According to Scowcroft and the article, "An American occupation of Iraq would be politically and militarily untenable...It would have been no problem for America's military to reach Baghdad...The problems would have arisen when the Army entered the Iraqi capital. 'At a minimum, we'd be an occupier in a hostile land,' he said. 'Our forces would be sniped at by guerrillas, and, once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don't like the term 'exit strategy' -- but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?'"
Saddam accepted UAE exile plan to avert Iraq war-TV
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-28T211859Z_01_FOR876714_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-SADDAM-EXILE.xml&archived=False
Christy
I remember hearing that .. also Tariq Aziz, a Christian, went to Rome to beg the Pope to try to help avert the war. He ended up one of the "55 cards" and is still in jail. But Bush & Cheney did not want there not to be a war. The neocon plan for empire depended on going into Iraq and finishing what Bush I started and Powell averted, Clinton avoided via sanctions.
More on "the leak" and what to expect:
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Subject: What we can expect in Plamegate
http://www.tomdispatch.com
Smoking Guns and Red Herrings
What Should We Expect Now that Fitzgerald Has Announced the Indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby?
By Elizabeth de la Vega
The Grand Jury supervised by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has returned an indictment charging Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide and reputed "alter-ego" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby with perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements to the grand jury. But this indictment does not end the story; rather, a close reading suggests that these charges are most likely merely a chapter in a long and tragic story. Here, from a former federal prosecutor, are thoughts about four things we should expect, four things we shouldn't, and one question we should all be asking.
We should not expect a final resolution any time soon. Complex cases usually take years to proceed through the courts. In addition, the indictment released today describes a chronology of close to two years and a complicated set of facts. Obviously, Fitzgerald is taking a "big picture" approach to this case. This mirrors his approach to previous cases. In December 2003, for example, Fitzgerald announced the indictment of former Illinois Governor George Ryan on corruption charges in Operation Safe Road, which began in 1998. In that year, the investigation of a fatal accident revealed that truckers were purchasing commercial licenses from state officials. Indictments were announced in stages, culminating in the indictment of Ryan, who was the 66th defendant in the case. In the Libby case, the allegations suggest he was merely one of many officials -- including an unnamed Under Secretary of State and "Official A," a Senior White House Official -- who were involved in revealing classified information about Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame. No other individuals are named as defendants, and they should not be considered so at this point, but the complexity of the indictment suggests that the investigation may follow a pattern similar to that used by Fitzgerald in the Illinois corruption case.
We should not expect to hear much more from Fitzgerald. The Special Counsel has been widely admired, and sometimes criticized, for his "tight-lipped" approach and "leak-free" grand jury investigation. But that, folks, is how it's supposed to be. Federal prosecutors are required to maintain grand jury secrecy. If they don't do that, they not only jeopardize their investigations, they could lose their jobs and/or be charged with a crime. The public has come to expect leaks from grand jury investigations because Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who was not a federal prosecutor, ignored secrecy rules during the investigation of President Clinton (and got away with it). Even after indictment, Department of Justice (DOJ) press guidelines permit release of only limited facts about the defendant, the charges against him, and court documents or testimony that may become public during the prosecution. Don't hold your breath waiting for Fitzgerald to explain evidence not alleged in the indictment; nor will he appear on talk shows to debate defense representatives.
We should not expect a smoking gun. Even when there actually is a gun, there's hardly ever a smoking gun. In the case against Libby, as in most white-collar crime cases, the evidence is likely to consist mainly of documents, thousands of them. And considering that the weapon employed in this crime appears to be a telephone, the closest thing to a smoking gun may well be telephone records.
We should not expect the President to take steps to "get to the bottom of this." He professed that desire in October 2003, but belied it in the next breath, saying he "had no idea who the leaker was and didn't know if we'd ever find out. "There's a lot of senior officials [out there]," he commented. "You tell me," he asked a group of reporters, "how many sources have you had that's leaked information, that you've exposed, or had been exposed? Probably none." Of course, assuming Bush didn't already know who the leakers were, all he had to do was make darned sure his aides told him. After all, organizations routinely conduct internal probes in parallel with criminal investigations. Indeed, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines consider such inquiries to strongly indicate corporate acceptance of responsibility. But accepting responsibility for the CIA leak would have put quite a damper on the Bush reelection campaign. So, with his usual Janus-like approach to every threat, the President managed to declare himself above such petty politics while allowing surrogates to spread disinformation. In other words, the administration has attempted to derail the prosecution in precisely the same way it tried to derail ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson's credibility in the first place.
We should expect red herrings from the defense (even if not smoking guns from the prosecution). Fox hunters once tossed smoked red herrings out to test whether their dogs could stay on the right trail. Now, of course, the term means a distraction from the real issue; and if the Republican Talking Points rolled out thus far are any indication, we are going to be tripping over red herrings galore in the upcoming months.
We should expect more attacks on Joseph Wilson, even though they represent a very large red herring (more the size of a mackerel). These will be meant only for the court of public opinion. Since the White House has already admitted, repeatedly, that it had insufficient evidence to mention that Saddam Hussein was seeking Niger "yellowcake" uranium in the President's State of the Union address in 2003, claims that Wilson went to Niger on a boondoggle or that he is merely a partisan critic (both of which appear to be untrue) have never been the least bit relevant. If you don't dispute the essence of the testimony of a witness, then undermining his credibility is pointless in a court of law.
We should expect another red herring, one that should have been thrown back in the river long ago: that perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements charges are not "substantive," and so somehow less serious. "Substantive" is a legal term, referring to a crime that can be proved without reference to the elements of another crime. For example, bank robbery is a "substantive crime" and conspiracy to commit bank robbery is not. (But they're both crimes.) Perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements may arise out of the investigation of other crimes, but they stand on their own. So they too are "substantive" crimes. More to the point, as Patrick Fitzgerald eloquently explained in his press conference, lying in an investigation is extraordinarily serious, because it undermines the integrity of the process.
We should expect attempts by pundits to derive "meaning" from the absence of charges under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act. Reasons for the absence of such charges can range from insufficient evidence to concerns about the Classified Information Procedures Act, which governs the use of classified information in a criminal case. No one other than Fitzgerald, his staff, and the grand jury knows why certain charges were not brought and they will never be able to explain their decisions.
We should expect a campaign to demonize Fitzgerald through claims that he is overzealous and has exceeded his authority. Such attacks are legally irrelevant, but more important, they're wrong. Fitzgerald's original mandate, contained in a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Comey, was to investigate all crimes arising from the outing of Valerie Plame. Out of an apparent abundance of caution, Fitzgerald requested clarification of the term "all" and was advised, again by Comey, that it included both underlying crimes and crimes that stemmed from the investigation of the underlying crimes. At no time did Fitzgerald seek, or receive, an expansion of his authority: it was there all along, as it would be in any investigation of federal crimes.
We should also expect pundits to argue that this prosecution is political. That is the most despicable of red herrings considering that Fitzgerald has been a career prosecutor forbidden by the Hatch Act to participate in politics for twenty years, is registered without political affiliation, and was appointed by a Republican. Also, the resulting indictments were returned by grand jurors who heard evidence for two years, after which a majority, at least 12 out of 23, decided that there was probable cause to believe -- in other words, it was "more likely than not" -- that the defendant had committed all the elements of the crimes charged. In other words, in investigating and returning an indictment against the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Patrick Fitzgerald and the grand jury have followed one of the most basic principles of criminal jurisprudence: that the law is no respecter of persons, that all persons stand equal before it. It would have been the most flagrant violation of the rule of law if the prosecutor and grand jury had walked away from Lewis Libby's deliberate deceptions simply because he was an important government official.
But should we expect, given the Republicans' attempts to belittle and politicize the case thus far, that President Bush will pardon his senior administration official if Libby is convicted on these serious charges? The 1992 Christmas Eve pardons of Iran/contra defendants by former President George Bush Sr. provide cause for concern. Let us hope that the current President Bush will not undermine the rule of law in this way.
Madame, as I remember, Scowcroft was one of the ones Kerry talked before the vote to try determine if Bush Jr was totally gung-ho neo-con, and he reassured JK.
Many gave too mcuh credit to Powell and GW for doing the right thing.