To Libby

Professor Cole coins a new word, the verb "libby". It is a combination of to lie, to lobby, and to libel.

So the sense would be of lying for the purpose of convincing a large number of persons to adopt some policy that was bad for them. Thus, "the pitchman libbied his audience to buy snake oil as a way to treat their gout." Or, "the mole libbied the public on behalf of a foreign power." That could be definition 1 in those numbered entries at Merriam Webster.

I've also been poking around radical religious right sites this morning, and it seems the argument most forcefully used is that Plame was already outed by her husband. As Schenker points out, these brainwashed clowns have no problem calling a man with integrity and honor like Patrick Fitzgerald an outright liar. Considering he's a prosecutor, that's pretty brazen, even for the radical religious right. Cue the Lee Greenwood mama! When all else fails, wave the flag, wave the same one which flew over the rubble at ground zero! Raising the terror threat level might be good too.