I disagree. I was impressed by Mr. Fitzgerald. I belive Wilson outed his wife, conspired to discredit the White House in a time of War and lied to the Senate repeatedly, BUT if Scooter knowingly lied to the GJ and did discuss this issue 6 times prior to "just learning", then he broke the law and should be punished.
However, if Mr. Liby's punishment is any stronger than that of Sandy Burglar then there is something incredibly wrong with how we dispense justice. A man who knowingly stole classified materials and destroyed said materials is a greater offense than knowingly misleading a GJ. And given that the underlying crime was not found to be true, he should receive a plea deal with a misdemeanor and a fine. Nothing more. (assuming he does not challenge the indictments).
I was impressed with Mr. Fitzgerald and unless I learn otherwise, I will not cast dispersion on the work he has done. It appears to have been an intelligent examination of facts and his press conference was spot-on. He avoided conjecture, stood his ground to reporters and dismissed many unfounded allegations. The media on the other hand was typically sickening especially when the lady reporter spouted what she called the "Republican Talking Points". Can you image a reporter trying to discount the reaction of the majority of this country before that reaction is even given! No bias there.
From today's Federalist:
Much ado about nothing...
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will announce in a press conference this afternoon any indictments to be handed down in the outing of already-outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. The buzz is that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, will be indicted and that Karl Rove will escape for the time being—though there is still the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald could exercise restraint. Libby will likely collect a perjury charge because he testified that he learned of Plame's identity from reporters, but his own notes indicate that he actually learned about Plame from Vice President Cheney directly.
Oops. In other words, if they had asked him if he had ham and cheese on rye or wheat two years ago, and he recalled wheat but his notes said rye, that constitutes perjury.
Nagging questions that remain include whether Plame's covert status was actually compromised to the media. She had worked conspicuously at Langley headquarters for several years, and she certainly played a role in her husband Joe Wilson's trip to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium. Wilson, a Bush-hating bureaucrat of considerable ego, believes that Plame's outing was a grand conspiracy by the administration to avenge his own harsh criticism of President Bush and the case for war in Iraq—which leads us to the shaky nature of two of the pillars of Fitzgerald's case: One is Wilson, whose proven falsehoods and shameless self-promotion long ago wrecked his credibility among fair-minded people; the other is New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose scattershot and inaccurate notes have earned her the nickname Miss Run Amok.
National security was not compromised because everyone now knows where Valerie Plame commutes each day.
Oh, and nobody would know that Valerie Plame had a desk job at Langley, except for the fact that Wilson launched this whole vindictive political ploy in the press. To be sure, U.S. national security was not compromised in the least simply because everyone now knows where Plame commutes each day.
In the end, our hope is that Mr. Fitzgerald, having conducted a thoughtful and vigorous investigation, decides not to indict; that he exercises restraint and invokes a commonsense playground axiom: No harm, no foul.
NO UNDERLYING CRIME.....same as Martha Stewart, waste of time..if no underlying crime, then NOBODY should be indicted on these BS charges....