Faded frog march fantasies

Dan Thomasson:

Joseph Wilson -- or Mr. Valerie Plame if you prefer -- must have been sorely disappointed to learn Karl Rove won't be "frog walked" out of the White House in handcuffs as he had so fervently hoped. After all he and the little lady had been dining out on that prospect for almost three years.
Now all that seemingly remains of his apparent desire to see the White House embroiled in a scandal that at least matched the Watergate debacle is the eventual trial, if it ever occurs, of an assistant to the vice president -- hardly what one would call a historic event though it does have constitutional implications for the press and some potential for embarrassment to Dick Cheney.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's decision not to charge the president's deputy chief of staff sent an all-clear sign to the Oval Office, leaving George Bush relieved and Scooter Libby, former top aide to Mr. Cheney, likely to be the sole person indicted in an investigation that has preoccupied Washington's liberal salons for nearly three years at no small expense to taxpayers. It is difficult to believe that is enough to sustain the Vanity Fair social status of Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Plame, whose disclosure as a sometime CIA covert operative brought about this entire debacle.

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Wilson has suggested to some that he might bring a civil suit against Rove. That would be a huge mistake. Not only would he open himself up to disclosure about his leaks of classified information to the media, some of which he could have gotten from his wife, but moreover, he and his wife have not been damaged by the revelation. In fact he has been wallowing in them liek a pig in slop. He has written his own book and his wife has been shopping a book proposal that would pay her for more than she could ever earn as a CIA employee. Talk about career enhancement for a has been ambassador and a CIA paper pusher.

Jack Kelly also nails the liberals' real interest in this case.

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Liberals wanted Mr. Rove indicted because he is a skilled political adversary.

The interest among liberals in an indictment of the person who actually told columnist Robert Novak about Ms. Plame (thought to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) is zero, because there would be no political gain from it.

Their efforts to criminalize policy differences stem from two related beliefs, both inimical to democracy.

The first is the belief that anyone who disagrees with me is evil and must be punished. It's hard to find people on the moonbat left who don't think this way.

The second is the belief that whatever I do to obtain political power is legitimate. Many Democrats who recognize belief No. 1 is a crock eagerly embrace this one.

Travis County (Austin) District Attorney Ronnie Earle indicted then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for a fundraising practice that wasn't illegal under Texas law, and which he knew Democrats were using, too.

For more than two years, the state attorney in Palm Beach tried to indict conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for a felony because of his addiction to painkillers. Contrast this with the kid-glove treatment given Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., whose substance abuse problems are more public.

For liberals, it's the accusation that matters; not whether or not it is true. Consider the liberal rush to judgment in the Duke rape case.

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For liberals it is "the seriousness of the charge" not the "nature of the evidence." That has been their theme ever since Clarence Thomas was nominated and suffered the same assaults. Criminalization of political differences has become just another tactic for them.