Scooter: Teleological Suspension of the Ethical?

A bit more on the post, below, about the spuriousness of lying as political practice: what I didn't say explicitly was that I don't think (but somebody with a more refined ethical/political sensibility please correct me if I'm wrong) a politically-motivated legal transgression can be politically relevant if the act is only known to the law-breaker (or his sympathetic peers). In other words, an act of civil disobedience can't really be expected to work, if it is secretive.

Suppose Thoreau, instead of openly refusing to pay a poll tax, had claimed some false exemption (I don't really know whether such exemptions existed, but say they did); were he not caught in the lie, the gesture would not, even in the tiniest of way, have been significant. Were he caught in the lie, he might then claim his lie had been political. But that explanation presupposes his getting caught in the lie. Would we still be reading Thoreau if he had tried to reverse-justify a criminal act known only to himself when it was committed?

If Libby is being charged for something he did based on his political convictions--especially if it isn't totally clear that the act is criminal--then, sure, let's talk about the criminalization of politics, the threat that emerges when any of us feels that the means we employ for the political ends we seek are in danger of being made preemptively (or retrospectively) illegal. Ironically, the initially vehement response to the Plame leak by the Bush Administration had the effect of criminalizing the potentially purely political gesture of discrediting Wilson by revealing his relationship to the CIA. It is only in response to this that--in a new context in which he may find himself guilty of a serious crime (supposing he didn't know this to begin with)--Scooter allegedly lies. I'm sympathetic to that. I get it. I'll even make this suggestion: let's maybe go easy on the guy.

But if Libby defends himself by insinuating that his alleged perjury is justified by a politics that of necessity cannot be shared or explained to the rest of us, that documents never to be released by the Bush administration would show him to have operated extra-ethically because he had to, because it was the right thing to do, then let's deal with him more carefully. And ask ourselves to what degree transparency really matters to us.

And if he claims he can't remember anything that happened, let's not hesitate to call him a coward.