WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The judge and attorneys in the Lewis "Scooter" Libby case slogged through more potential jurors Thursday to reach 30 qualified out of a necessary 36, prompting the judge to hope for better results when jury selection resumes Monday.

In three days of interviews, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton and the trial attorneys have disqualified 19 potential jurors, many after expressing negative beliefs about the Bush administration, which could lead to bias at the trial.

"It took all day to qualify six jurors," Walton said at the close of the day. "I hope that's not the case Monday." - CNN
____________________

Libby may get off completely, without a trial.
After all, it really will be difficult to find 36 people in Washington who don't have a reason to dislike the administration.

It goes to show they need to give this thing a rest & drop the charges. It's already been proven the man done nothing wrong.

Why do you bother with jury selection in the USA ? It's easy to see that a weak judge and strong lawyers could make a case that no juror could ever be free of some bias in such a case.

Here in Britain you get the first twelve taken at random from the waiting jury pool present.There are no challenges allowed and no lawyer may ask any question of any potential juror.We allow a verdict on which only ten of the twelve are agreed. We rely on the judge directing the jury that they are to try the case on the evidence that they are about to hear, and only that evidence,form their opinions on that evidence and to put out of their minds anything they have heard or read elsewhere.In my experience jurors follow that principle and, if anything, take pride in acquitting someone who has already been tried and found guilty by the media (or politicians ) or whose 'guilt' is by association.

quote:

It's already been proven the man done nothing wrong.

When? Where? How? By whom?

'...mainly, Libby is betting on what one lawyer calls his "busy man defense."

The defense is unusual because Libby is in essence admitting that he might not have told the truth, which lawyers said is a risky gambit in perjury cases, where defendants usually argue that what they said was technically true or that they were confused by the questions posed to them. They said they could not recall another case where it had been tried in court.

Jeffrey Frederick, a Charlottesville, Va., jury consultant, said the test for Fitzgerald would be showing that the conversations with journalists dealt with a subject that was so important that a reasonable person would have remembered it. That could be tough for Libby to overcome because the subject matter was the war and Wilson - whom the White House clearly had concerns about.

"We are not talking about whether you had tuna or sirloin on a Friday night," Frederick said.' Libby defense in CIA leak case to hinge on 'faulty memory'

Thanks, New. LR had me confused; I thought a trial had already been held, and I missed it. But I should have known better; trials generally do not prove innocence; they prove that the prosecution failed to make its case.

It is true, though, that the Libby trial has strong echoes of Clinton's impeachment, in that the perjury is not really what anyone was interested in to begin with.

The big difference is the larger issue behind each perjury trial. In Clinton's case it was a squalid little office affair. In Libby's, it's a catastrophically ill-planned war started for no good reason.

"In Libby's, it's a catastrophically ill-planned war started for no good reason."


I disagree. The larger issue is the outing of a US spy, and that it was done for soley political reasons.

I think it's a combination of the two: the outing of a spy for political reasons, in order to spite her husband who pointed a ray of light into the "catastrophically ill planned (and unnecessary) war".

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Thanks, New. LR had me confused; I thought a trial had already been held, and I missed it. But I should have known better; trials generally do not prove innocence; they prove that the prosecution failed to make its case.

Sorry about that DG. I know you are easily confused.

'Top White House officials tried to blame vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby for the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity to protect President Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, Libby's defense attorney said Tuesday as his perjury trial began...' abcnews.go.com

This trial might turn out to be quite entertaining.

'In the first such account from Vice President Dick Cheney's inner circle, a former aide testified Thursday that Cheney personally directed the effort to discredit an administration critic by having calls made to reporters in 2003...' Los Angeles Times

Common Dreams, a non-profit news service that provides breaking news to the liberal/progressive community, has reprinted an article from the Los Angeles Times. The LA Times has won 37 Pulitzer Prizes with 5 coming in 2004, the second highest number ever in one year. It's the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. While Common Dreams definitely has a Democratic slant to what it prints, the LA Times is a newpaper to be taken seriously.

(While not the worst picture of cheney I have ever seen, the picture that Common Dreams uses with this article is pretty bad. But then, it's probably difficult to find a picture of cheney that looks good, unless you get one of him being driven past some poor people. I have no doubt that he would be smiling then, if he actually noticed them, that is.)

Hi dg:

How come,in your praise for the L.A.Times you neglect to point out that the L.A.Times [as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post ]is a Liberal biased newspaper???

You usuallly seem to remind us that Fox News is a Conservative biased network anytime you mention Fox News.

I think your own Liberal bias is showing once again.

What ever happened to Fair ,even though you are rarely Balanced ???

hippolips

I think what I said about the LA Times was fair and accurate. If, as so many on the right claim, the print media has a liberal bias, is it reallty necessary to state it every time one mentions a newspaper?

Let's turn the tables for a minute. Why has no one one the Right ever (or rarely ever) mentioned that Fox News slants a great deal to the right? Is it only those on the Left that must include warnings?

However, to be fair, I will add the following to my previously stated observation that Common Dreams has a Liberal Slant:

A 2004 survey of journalists by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Fox was "the single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance",[5] with 56% of national journalists citing Fox News as being especially conservative in its coverage of news.[6] Further research has shown that there is a correlation between the presence of the Fox News Channel in cable markets and increases in Republican votes in those markets.[7]

CNN's Larry King said in a Jan. 17, 2007 interveiw with the Chicago Sun-Times, "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, [like] Greta van Susteren. But I don't begrudge them that. [Fox CEO] Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not [Bill] O'Reilly, but I don't watch him."

As with many news sources, Fox News executives exert a degree of editorial control over the content of their daily reporting. In the case of Fox News, some of this control comes in the form of daily memos issued by Fox New's Vice President of News, John Moody. Critics of Fox News cite these memos as evidence of a conservative bias in Fox News reporting, and claim that information in these memos sometimes duplicates Republican talking points.[25]

The following is an incomplete list of personalities that may appear regularly on Foxnews.com:

* Cato Institute writer - Ted Galen Carpenter, libertarian columnist, a fierce critic of the Iraq War and adamantly opposed to military strikes against Iran
* Cato Institute writer - Michael Tanner staunch advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, opponent of universal health care.
* Heritage Foundation writer - James Jay Carafano, paleoconservative opponent of the separation between church and state, abortion and stem cell research.
* Heritage Foundation writer - David Muhlhausen, conservative opponent of public school and the separation between church and state[citation needed]
* Individualist feminist writer - Wendy McElroy, individualist anarchist/feminist and critic of liberal feminism, espouses a libertarian alternative.
* Tongue-Tied blog-writer - Scott Norvell, anti-political correctness columnist and humorist.
* Junk Science writer - Steven Milloy, outspoken opponent of environmentalism and global warming.
* Center for Security Policy - Olivia Albrecht, neoconservative columnist.
* Libertarian writer - Radley Balko, advocate of globalization, pro-life opponent of Roe v. Wade and supporter of federalism.
* Real Clear Politics writer - Jed Babbin conservative pundit
* Real Clear Politics neoconservative writer - Robert Tracinski
* Real Clear Politics pundit - Peter Brown, conservative columnist
* Real Clear Politics pundit - John McIntyre, conservative columnist
* Real Clear Politics pundit - Tom Bevan, conservative columnist


But, to be fair and to balance all that right-wing tipping of the balance scales, Fox News has

# Neoliberal writer - Martin Frost, former Texas conservative Democrat representative, defeated in the United States House election, 2004.
# Blue Streak writer - Susan Estrich, feminist advocate, liberal commentator

I tried to find a major award that Fox News has won, but failed. (I admit to only looking at Wikipedia and two pages of Google results.) But I did find one award Fox received. Bill O'Reilly was given the honor of Misinformer of the Year in 2004 by Media Matters, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2004 by formerly conservative journalist and author David Brock, is an American organization that hosts a website featuring watchdog journalism. Media Matters describes itself as "a web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Media Matters defines conservative misinformation as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."[1] Media Matters scrutinizes news reporting and political commentary that contain conservative distortions or falsehoods.

I guess that show how Fox remains fair and balanced.

And now you have, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story.


Note: Much of the above was lifted from Wikipedia.

'Presidential advisor Karl Rove and White House communications director Dan Bartlett have received subpoenas to testify for the defense at the trial of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, ABC News has learned from a lawyer with knowledge of the case.

The Libby defense indicated in March 2006 court papers that Karl Rove will be a "key witness" in the trial, and will testify concerning a conversation with Libby on July 10 or 11, 2003, regarding columnist Robert Novak's intent to print a story about Valerie Plame's employment at the CIA.

Trial watchers said the subpoenas make it clearer than ever that Libby's defense team will seek to put the Bush administration and its policies on trial...' Rove, White House Spokesman Get Subpoenas

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
I think what I said about the LA Times was fair and accurate. If, as so many on the right claim, the print media has a liberal bias, is it really necessary to state it every time one mentions a newspaper?

.................................................

Hi dg:

What I was trying to say is this:

If Fox News is a Conservative media outlet...

and,If The New York Times,the L.A.Times and the Washington Post,by your definition, are not Liberal media outlets...

And if all of the other media outlets are all middle of the road,independent thinking media outlets...

Then where are the Liberals getting their news and views ???

Or are all of the other media outlets also Liberal in their news and views???

Just curious.

hippolips

I can't speak for any other Liberals but this one, but I get my news from a variety of sources.
In newspapers, I generally read the ones that are nationally and internationally respected. This includes their web versions. I am influenced, like everyone else, by the design of a web site, and avoid those that are too cumbersome to navigate. My TV news is from PBS and NBC, with some ABC thrown in. Because I don't have cable, and get poor reception on CBS, I don't see any CBS news at all. What little I have seen and read of Fox News places its integrity somewhere near Maury Povitch or Jerry Springer, and I avoid those types of entertainment.

I don't recal saying that the three newspapers did not lean to the Left, but if I did, I was wrong. However, there is a difference in editotrial content and news content, and I generally use those papers for their news content.

You ask where I get my views? Thet are products of mine. I generally don't read from scripts, unlike Fox, which has been shown to do exactly that. I don't always asgree with the Liberals, but that fact seems to be ignored here.

I also didn't say that all the other media is middle-of-the-road. Some are on the Left, some are on the Right, and some are truly in the middle. However, I won't claim that, just because a specific news source disagrees with me, that it is biased. That I put down Fox News for not being unbiased seems to be borne out by evidence, some of which I posted. I don't see anything wrong with ashowing multiple examples of a source's bias, though, if that source disagrees with me. It is certainly not my fault if a source cannot bear scrutiny.

Facts are just that, facts. They aren't opinions, nor do they belong to any one individual. This is one of the reasons I like Trivia. Trivia is all about facts, not opinion. Fact may not be as I like them, they may not lead to a conclusion I like, but they are facts. It's really hard to argue with facts.

Have you ever noticed that the Left complains about what is being done, and the Right complains about what is being reported? Why is that?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,