Today's Verdict

By Bill Bennett
National Review Online
March 6, 2007

What we know is this: Guilty on four out of five counts is bad. But at the same time, we may have just seen the latest and most dramatic example of a troublesome trend of the times in which we live: the criminalization of politics. What was alleged in public—the terrible thing that caused the outrage—was the outing of a classified CIA agent. But this thing, as terrible as it was alleged to be, was not only never proven, it—the gravamen of the whole dispute—was never even charged. It seems plausible to assume that Libby was found guilty by the jury because they didn’t believe his account regarding statements recalled from his memory. But, when well-established journalists’ memories fail them in a trial about conversations that seemingly didn’t mean that much, it is hard not to excuse the Vice President's Chief of Staff about those very same conversations in a time of war.

This case will have a backlash the press will regret: sources will be less likely to speak with them, not because the press was called to testify but because senior government officials will be expected to remember every jot and tittle of what they say to each member of the press in their background, off-the-record, and investigative interviews.

For my own part, based on the above, I still do not believe that Scooter Libby’s actions were criminal and that he is deserving of jail. There might have been real crimes here, but if there were, unfortunately, they were never charged. Joe Wilson’s hands are not clean, and neither are Richard Armitage’s.

In the aftermath of this case, I maintain what I said the first time Joe Wilson alleged the outing of his wife: if your spouse’s position is of such a classified nature that disclosure of her position would put her job in jeopardy, then don’t write a political op-ed in the New York Times that has implications for what your spouse did to put you in a position to write that op-ed.