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Making Sense of the Libby Trial

The comedy illustrious as "Plamegate" last but not least flooring to a lame this morning next to the certainty of I. Lewis Libby on 4 of 5 counts of obstruction, perjury, and fabricated. Just one problem: there's no expressed data that Libby conducted any such movements.

The total covering hinged on two men memory not like versions of the same conversation-specifically, a spoken communication concerning Libby and Matthew Cooper of Time which took put down in July 2003.This is what the audition had been distilled to: two men's memoirs of a just about 3-year old voice communication next to no somatogenic proof of any sort, and 5 crime counts wall hanging over the due process of law. Thin fill up for such graduate bet.

Underscoring the hysteria and expression around the valise were the responses of the jurors. As lately as yesterday, the jurors admitted alarm on the peak prime issues, such as the account of "reasonable improbability." This morning, preceding to the verdict, the body asked for the sort out to summarize what two of the crime counts meant.

However, it gets worsened. The murk of the measures belies the relatively unambiguous character of their inherent intent: to debilitate President Bush politically by illegitimating not just the Iraq war itself, but the motives aft it.

What had begun as a left-of-center harassment to castigate the "leakers" inwardly the Bush management who "outed" Valerie Plame took an abrupt turn basically a few months ago past it became illustrious that the unproved rootage for Novak's column had not been Rove or Fleischer, but rather Richard Armitage. Armitage, a Powell ally rather than a Bush confidante, was not the mark the President's war critics were aiming at. And variety no mistake; the trial's aims were without doubt semipolitical. It was finished the maneuverings of Senator Chuck Schumer that the criminal prosecution was handed ended to Patrick Fitzgerald in the most basic point.

Fitzgerald's focussed was definite to any who detected his terminative notice today: Iraq, Bush, and Cheney were midway stage, for that has been the prosecutor's immersion from the formation. His task was not to sustain the law, but to conduct a politically-motivated blood feud.

The narrative isn't terminated for Libby, of course; he can inert appeal his case, and in all likelihood, will do so. More grave than the questioning of Libby's fate, however, is the mind-set in the Beltway that deems it much impressive to dramatic work pin-the-scandal-on-the-staffer a bit than deal with the sober hitches posed by an unraveling Iraq. This examination is a mark of crime for our embassy class: faced near sober issues at quarters and abroad, our leadership punted in benignity of placing bets on a resentment lucifer.

Shame on them.