Reading accounts of the trial of I. Lewis Libby, the former right hand man of Vice President Cheney, I am coming to the conclusion that he will be found guilty of perjury.  The prosecutor has done a masterful job of demonstrating that Libby, on various occassions, did precisey what he said, under oath, that he had not done.  The defense will face a difficult time when they get their chance to call witnesses, which might include the Vice President himself.

    Even if Libby is convicted, I still doubt this will bring Cheney down.  The whole thing is an embarrassment for Bush, but he seems able to accept a great deal of that.  No, Bush needs Cheney too much to force him to resign over the Libby mess.  "Scooter" will be a scapegoat and the listing ship of state will continue its shameful voyage to January 20, 2009. 

    What all this brings to mind, for me at least, is passage 13 from the Tao Te Ching (this link will take you to the Waley and Lau translations; quoted below is the Hinton translation):

Honor is a contagion deep as fear.
renown a calamity profound as self.

Why do I call honor a contagion deep as fear?
Honor always dwindles away,
so earning it fills us with fear
and losing it fill us with fear.

And why do I call renown a calamity profound as self?
We only know calamity because we have these selves.
If we didn’t have selves
what calamity could touch us?

When all beneath heaven is your self in renown
you trust yourself to all beneath heaven,
and when all beneath heaven is your self in love
you dwell throughout all beneath heaven.

     There is significant variation among the various translations, but what Hinton finds here is an admonition to let go of honor and self and status and renown.  Mr. Libby cannot do that.  He vainly holds on to honor and renown, his own and his boss’s.  He fearfully and vainly resists as his honor dwindles away.  And because of that, because of that narrow egotism, he is not fit to rule, nor are his bosses.

    The last stanza of the passage is a bit obtuse.  I take it to mean that when you give up the idea of an autonomous self, which might be the origin of the desire for honor and renown, and you open yourself up to the world around you, then you will inhabit your life in peace.  "When all beneath heaven is yourself in renown," seem to mean finding yourself in your surroundings, not defending and alienating your self from your surroundings.  When you give yourself over to Way, that is when you will be able to depend upon "all beneath heaven." 

     Similarly, "when all beneath heaven is your self in love," is a rejection of a narrow, selfish, self-love.  Rather, when you find love in your relationship to the world, not merely in the ersatz fulfillment of some internal desires, then you will live in serenity. 

     But Washington doesn’t work like that.  It is all about status and power and the narrowest definitions of self-interest.  That is what Mr. Libby is caught up in, and that is what is bringing him down.

     UPDATE: Cheney’s fear and arrogance also…..