Trial of the absurd

John Podhoretz:

...

So let's review. No crime was committed, according to Fitzgerald, in the publication of Valerie Plame Wilson's name.

No crime was committed, according to Fitzgerald, by the actions of two government officials who revealed Valerie Plame Wilson's name to Novak.

No crime was committed, according to Fitzgerald, by the White House press secretary who actually and actively tried to spoon-feed the name to three journalists.

Scooter Libby, by contrast, spoke to a reporter who didn't publish a story with Valerie Plame Wilson's name in it. She went to jail for 85 days. Now Fitzgerald wants to send Libby to jail too - on the basis of dimly remembered conversations and indecipherable chicken scratches.

So why did this series of conversations end up being the subject of a criminal investigation? Don't ask. Really. The jury's not even supposed to think about Valerie Plame Wilson's status - whether covert, classified, non-covert, non-classified or whatever. Honestly. That's what the judge ruled.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Crime Without a Cause.

Oh, except for one thing: BushliarCheneydespicableHaliburtonevilneocons.

I rest my case.

It is trial about politics and not justice. If it were about justice, Joe Wilson would be a defendant. One of the things that has come clear from the trial is that Wilson made many false and misleading statements in describing how he was sent to Niger and what he found. It is too bad that none of that is a matter for this trial. The existence of this trial is a major injustice at this point.