Give Scooter Libby credit for something, the man is at heart an artist with a firm grip on irony and probably has inked a deal with Danny DeVito to play him when this tawdry event becomes a movie. How else to account for his July 7, 2003 chat with White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Fleischer testified in court today that during a lunch with Libby, Scooter told Ari that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA in CPD (a division in the Directorate of Operations) and that this info was, “hush, hush and on the QT“.
Paging Danny DeVito. Mr. DeVito please. Yep cineophiles, Scooter was quoting Danny Devito from L.A. Confidential. As described by Clark Kimball of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Danny DeVito:
was the slimeball publisher of a tabloid
tattler that outed celebs and civic insiders, helped in no small part
by “moles” inside the Police Department, in particular Kevin Spacey as
the “technical adviser”, a detective who found a synergistic partner in
DeVito. Their careers were mutually boosted by high-profile arrests and
tawdry exposes. Of course, both characters paid a huge price for their
methods.
DeVito answers the phone throughout the movie with this stock phrase, “HUSH, HUSH, and on the QT”.
Damn! It don’t get any better than this. Talk about art imitating life. Danny DeVito played a scumbag, but Scooter Libby really is one. DeVito outed fictional celebs while Libby helped expose a CIA undercover officer. And Danny DeVito’s character gets beaten to death. Ahh, we can only dream.