Happy 4th of July, Scooter Libby

In every instance where there was a sworn statement, the Administration conceded that Valerie Plame was a spy, and that leaking her name would be a crime for the purposes of the relevant statutes.

Rush Limbaugh, Fred Thompson, and others not sworn under oath, have said otherwise. But it appears that they don't have their facts straight.

The fact that Richard Armitage leaked Valerie Plame's name was a side-show farce coincidence. Just because someone leaked first doesn't end the matter of who leaked best, or whose leak broke the law.

Scooter Libby appears to have successfully obstructed justice. That was the reason why the special prosecutor was unable to find an underlying crime.

Therefore, Scooter Libby is smarter than Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart, to name just three people who tried to obstruct justice, but who weren't smart enough to do it successfully.

Anyone who says that there was no underlying crime does not really know what they are talking about.

I am linking to something I wrote in March , because I am finally seeing this in some of the writing today, and I hate being called a copy-cat:

The Republican-run CIA complained to the Republican-run Justice Department that someone leaked the name of a spy.

The Bush appointed Republican Attorney General recused himself.

The Bush appointed Republican deputy Attorney General appointed a Republican special prosectuor

A political appointee of a Republican Vice President lied in front of the grand jury sworn in by the Republican special prosecutor.

A Republican 3-judge panel allowed the Republican special prosecutor to expand the scope of the investigation to allow for the indictment.

A Republican judge presided over the case and passed sentence.

The Lewis Libby affair has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Democrats, and our elected Democratic officials need to be careful about getting themselves too close to the fire.

L'Affaire Libby is the same Republican vs Republican fight that lead to the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.

It is the difference between a conservative approach to the rule of law, which (and I am sorry to be so partisan) is currently exemplified by people like John Ashcroft, John McCain, the judge in the Lewis Libby case, and the appeals court judges who refused to create new law in the Terry Schiavo case, on the one hand, and the royalist approach to the rule of law, as exemplified by Bush, Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, Pat Robertson, and Antonin Scalia.

One swing vote to watch in this Republican fight is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Democrats are, of course, free to offer alternative visions to what constitutes liberty and justice for all.