Judge Walton: "If Mr. Libby doesn't testify, there'll be no memory defense"

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020600396.html

<snip>

Libby originally planned to testify about those national security issues to help bolster what has become known as the "memory defense." Testifying would be a risky move, however, because it would subject him to cross-examination by Fitzgerald, who has a reputation as a tough questioner.

Defense attorneys now say they should be allowed to present Libby's calendars and briefing topics even if Libby doesn't testify. Forcing him to take the stand would violate his right to a fair trial and his right against self-incrimination, attorneys wrote.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has not ruled on the issue but has said that attorneys could not raise the memory defense at closing without Libby's testimony.

"If Mr. Libby doesn't testify, there'll be no memory defense," Walton said.

[Kagemusha]

1. I think more precisely

Walton has not ruled on the MOTION, but he has been clear about the ISSUE when it has come up in the past. It is a pig with new lipstick that he has merely not gotten around to roasting yet.

[Tin Man]

2. It's only logical - in order to have a "memory defense", Libby himself must testify "I forgot"

Nobody but Libby is qualified to testify to the centerpiece of his defense - Libby must testify "I forgot".

[H2O Man]

3. Add to that

his rather curious claim that he remembered something that never actually happened -- that he spoke to Russert, and that Russert mentioned Plame. Now, we all have experiened simply forgetting something, but to "remember" something that didn't happen?

The Russert business is central to Libby's memory defense. No one else can testify that Libby "remembered" Russert talking to him about Plame.

[nebenaube]

4. the thing to consider...

These people don't get where they are without being 'trained'. By that I mean in the neurolinguistic programming sense... I expect many of them have a plethora of 'false memories'.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

5. Could you spell that out for the denser members of DU, like me?

I don't follow exactly what you're getting at.

[nebenaube]

7. google NLP and awaken yourself then.... n/t

[Peace Patriot]

6. Yes, it is at least POSSIBLE to remember something that didn't happen.

Children are more vulnerable to invented memory--their minds easily make things up, and they are convinced that it is true. Drunks do it. And congenital liars. They really believe what they are saying. It's generally someone with an impairment--such as, reasoning powers that are not fully developed (children), or substance abuse or psychological problems. Full blown, it is an imaginary world. So, we ALL have the capacity to become convinced that something happened that didn't happen, or that we did something that we didn't do.

Say you lost your car keys. You COULD HAVE SWORN you put them on the kitchen table next to the groceries. You REMEMBER putting them there. But you didn't. What you are imperfectly remembering is that that is what you did YESTERDAY, or did every day for years. So past memories are mixed up with recent memory. And you keep looking in the grocery bags, under the kitchen table, on the floor, around the stove and fridge, etc., cuz you KNOW--and if you were on the stand in a murder case, at that moment, you would SWEAR-- that you put them on the kitchen table--you can SEE yourself doing it. In reality, when you picked up the grocery bags in the back seat of your car, there was a dog fight in your neighbor's yard that distracted you, and you left the keys in the car door.

Memory is a tricky business, for sure.

That is why Fitzgerald is putting witness after witness after witness on the stand to establish that this was LYING, not memory impairment, AND that it was part of a conspiracy coverup strategy to "seed" Plame's identity all over town, among reporters and others, and to have statements about her identity echoed back to the perpetrators, so that they could claim that "everybody knew" and that disclosure of her identity didn't originate with them.

It is simply amazing how well Fitzgerald has analyzed this spider's web of lies, and how clearly he is able to present it. Fitzgerald and the grand jury caught Libby in the act of spinning this web.

It is a very, very typical of Bushite "talking points" (their pattern of deception on many fronts) to claim that because something is PLAUSIBLE--whether it is Libby's "memory loss," or Saddam's WMDs, or the majority of the American people voting for Bush in '04--that it is therefore true. They don't feel compelled to make a case for outlandish propositions. Instead, they point to "cherry-picked" evidence that what they are saying is PLAUSIBLE, and dare you to prove them wrong. Is it PLAUSIBLE that Libby's memory was faulty? Yes. Was it PLAUSIBLE that Saddam had WMDs? Yes. Is it PLAUSIBLE that the American people voted for Bush and his heinous war and his horrendous torture and his unending lies, even though 56% of the American people opposed his war back in Feb. '03, and 63% opposed torture "under any circumstances" in May '04, and, indeed, even though 60% to 70% of the American people disagreed with Bush on just about any issue you could name throughout the 2004 election period? Yes, it's PLAUSIBLE. But is it TRUE?

And what is the evidence that it is true? On the election, the evidence vanishes the moment you go looking for it. The votes were all "counted" on the NEW electronic voting systems, run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--election systems owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--as the result of legislation (and $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding) engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney (--abetted by corporatist 'Democrats' like Christopher Dodd). The entire national press corps, and much of the U.S. population are suffering a delusion of PLAUSIBILITY, when it comes to the '04 election. And whenever anybody challenges it, the deluded ones, the corrupt and the wingers say that they must PROVE that the election was STOLEN--because, how could so many people have fallen for a PLAUSIBILITY? How come people THINK that Bush was elected?

How could people THINK that the Bushites outed Valerie Plame (and the entire covert WMD counter-proliferation network that she headed) when "everybody knew" who she was and what she did for a living?

Plausibility. And if there isn't any plausibility, they create some plausibility and "seed" it around town.

On Saddam's WMDs, was it PLAUSIBLE that he was secretly rebuilding his nuke and bioweapons program? Yes. I almost fell for it myself. I listened to Colin Powell's speech very carefully, but something wasn't quite right about it (really, it was his tone of voice more than anything), so I went on the internet seeking more evidence--and quickly found out that the entire speech was a tissue of lies, under heavy dispute by the UN weapons inspectors, major allies and others. (Thank God for the internet!) It was PLAUSIBLE, but it was NOT TRUE. And it was as wrong and as criminal as it could be, to invade that country and kill tens of thousands of innocent people, based on the web of lies that Powell had spun around the PLAUSIBILITY that Saddam had WMDs.

And on Libby's "memory defense," yes, it is PLAUSIBLE--until you place it next to the EVIDENCE that Fitzgerald and others have developed, at which point it becomes not only implausible, but goes well beyond his lies (trying to cover his own ass), to the WHY of the web of lies that he and others were spinning. And that is where Fitzgerald paused, and, in his only press conference on this matter, said that this was a grave matter of national security, and that the focus of his investigation wasn't only who did it (outed Plame/B-J) but WHY.

If it was a sort of political accident, an inadvertent crime, or a rogue element (Rove going too far), that's one thing; but if it was a DELIBERATE act, and a CONSPIRACY, at the highest levels of our government, that is quite another thing. And the facts laid out so far make it IMPLAUSIBLE that the outing of Valerie Plame and Brewster-Jennings was accidental or a rogue political act. And these facts turn the "plausible" defense of "memory loss" right on its head. Is it PLAUSIBLE that one of the chief operatives of this conspiracy "misremembered" (invented the memory) that Tim Russert told HIM that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent, when one his conspiracy duties was to plant that very "seed" among reporters?

Libby's "plausible" defense parallels a lot of other Bushite plausibilities that are easy to fall for, if you're not paying attention. Really, we have the whole country being run right now on the increasingly implausible premises that, a) Bush/Cheney were reelected; b) that they are somehow representing the interests of the American people at home and abroad (even if we don't agree with how they're doing it), and c) that "keeping America safe" is anywhere to be found among their true motives.

What is increasingly clear is that all three of premises are dead wrong--while their PLAUSIBILITY (delusion, illusion, web of lies) is still visibly at work within the United States Congress.

[spindrifter]

8. In order to make the false memory work

Libby would need a memory expert along the lines of Elizabeth Loftus. Her many years of research support the idea that memory is a flexible construct. We are continuously reinventing what we experienced in the past and are susceptible to suggestion. This results in our recollection that a green car was actually a red car in a traffic accident, for example.
But he doesn't get the memory expert...so he either testifies about his recollection of what happened and why it might be different from what "really" happened, or he has to rely on the common wisdom of the jury--the jury that has heard a lot of witnesses testify that their memories don't match Scooter's.