Plame Sanity

Jonathan provides some much needed sanity on the Libby verdict:

The whole thing should never have been in the criminal justice system. I don't think the law against naming CIA agents is a great idea to begin with. And I certainly think it's a terrible precedent to force reporters to testify about their sources. Moreover, I suspect
both these things will come back at some point to bite progressives very hard in the ass.

I realize this perspective may be unpopular with some. And I understand where such people are coming from—it's only natural to want to see at least one of these guys punished someway, somehow. I've given into such temptation myself, on occasion.
But as we've learned, the criminal case addressed an extremely narrow issue, and most of the information it uncovered remains secret. By itself it gets us nowhere.
...
I mean, you have an administration that's built their case for a giant war on terrorists and terrifying weapons of mass destruction. We live in a world where, whatever the Bush administration's lies and exaggeration, this is a real problem. And then they blow the cover of someone who's secretly worked for decades on WMD issues.

If you'd written a script like this, no one would believe it. It would seem like agitprop. And yet it happened. A woman works at some real risk for decades with no recognition at government pay rates for what she believes is the best interest of her country.
An administration screams for years about how much they LUV AMERICA so much
they'll do ANYTHING TO PROTECT US. But when this women becomes inconvenient,
they squash her like a bug.

Likewise, when maimed soldiers come back from war, they're discarded like used tissues, even as Bush speaks constantly about how he LUVS THE TROOPS. Likewise, as New Yorkers wandered about in a haze of grief in mid-September, 2001, the Bush administration lied about the safety of breathing the air in lower Manhattan, even as Bush went on to give 20,000 speeches about THE HORRIBLE TRAUMA OF 9/11.

But all this apparently this makes no never mind to the Republican party, or the Washington Post editorial page. They have just as much contempt for us as the Bush administration itself.

Indeed, their contempt may be deepest for those who actually believe all their
lies about how we're all in this together and act on this belief. Suckers!

It has indeed been interesting watching many progressives become tacit, or even overt, advocates for the CIA during not only the Libby trial and its run-up, but also as the reality of the lack of WMD's in Iraq made its way onto America's teevees.