The all-important protection of sources

Val the flame will be testifying in front of Congress next week. Guess she'll be delaying that long-sought obscurity a little while longer. No worries, things will surely blow over in a year or two after the movie interviews conclude.

Actually, a public hearing might be interesting if the Republicans on the committee know which questions to ask, but there's no guarantee they're anymore in the know than Joe Sixpack, who has largely yawned off this scandal. So let's hope they get briefed, and briefed well. Maybe by Tom Maguire.

Hey, maybe they could invite Judy Miller to testify and tell us why she spent 85 days in jail! Speaking of Miss Runamok, the New York Times has been going full tilt Libby since the verdict and today was no exception. Adam Liptak joined the fray with a decent column on what precedents the Libby trial might have set regards press freedoms, specifically confidentiality agreements between reporters and government leakers. Mr. Liptak mentioned several seminal events that have eroded the unspoken pass given to the press after the Branzburg decision 35 years ago. Funny though, he didn't mention this one:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters' confidential sources.

Interestingly, Walter Pincus was a central figure in the Wen Ho Lee case just as he was in the Libby case. But unlike the Libby situation, the Lee case involved unmasking government sources from the Clinton administration. Fortunately for them Mr. Lee had his price.

Ironically one of those former administration members was current presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, who had a tangential role in the Lee case. Ironically some more, Mr. and Mrs. Plame are heading to New Mexico for retirement. It's a lot sunnier out there, I hear.

MORE 3/8/07

Novak is out with his post-trial expose, which quotes none other than David Boies of Bush vs. Gore fame:

On Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Tuesday night, superlawyer David Boies said Fitzgerald never should have prosecuted Libby because there was no underlying criminal violation. Boies scoffed at Fitzgerald's contention that Libby had obstructed him from exposing criminal activity.

My sentiments, exactly. It certainly seems to suggest Mr. Fitzgerald might have been mildly interested in his past raw dealings with both Libby and Miller, since both have now been fingerprinted and booked.

Meanwhile, it could be persuasively argued that folks like Armitage, Fleischer and Rove lied, along with Russert and several other journalists, a few FBI and CIA types, Wilson and even the prosecutor.