Libby team acting like they are winning

NY Times:

Lawyers defending I. Lewis Libby Jr. against perjury charges surprised the courtroom on Tuesday by saying that they would rest their case this week and do so without putting on the stand either Mr. Libby or Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Libby was Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff.

The decision means that Mr. Libby’s defense, which will formally end on Wednesday, will have spanned barely three days. Mr. Libby’s chief defense lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., told Judge Reggie B. Walton that Mr. Libby had accepted the defense team’s recommendation to end their presentation swiftly and send the case to the jury by next week.

The decision could be viewed as a sign that Mr. Libby’s lawyers are confident that the prosecution failed to make its case.

Mr. Wells had earlier signaled strongly that he intended to call Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to testify, which suggests that the defense team recently analyzed the costs and benefits of putting them on the stand and concluded that their testimony would not, on balance, help Mr. Libby.

...

The more likely analysis is that they believed they had made their case and did not need to put on additional witnesses. They probably feel that they have given the jury more than adequate reasons to find reasonable doubt about Fitzpatrick's case. Most of the prosecution witnesses have had problems recollecting events as Libby claims he had. The Defense witnesses also have demonstrated that the prosecutions theory that he was anxious to spread the word on Plame is untrue, since he had conversations with a half dozen leading reporters and did not tell them about her. They also got in testimony of a close associate that Libby was well known for having a bad memory. They got Armitage on tape saying that everybody knew about Plame anyway. I think they have given Mr. Wells a lot to work with on closing argument.