Law 101

Lots of conservative talking heads that aren't lawyers are all over the television claiming that the out the spy law was not broken.

This is not true.

In order to prove a law was broken you need a few things including motive.

However, more importantly, you need all those involved in the investigation to be truthful. As Fitzgerald was so kind to remind everyone during his press conference. Truth is paramount.

That means that if the truth is not forthcomming, a prosecutor and a grand jury cannot prove the crime they are going after. It is also difficult to prove motive in a non-truth telling setting. It is difficult to prove almost anything if you LIE.

It is that simple. I am deftly surprised that the folks who rammed the same purjury charge and super knowledge of the law down Bill Clinton's throat have not applied the same scrutiny to Lewis Libby.

What can be said about the indictment of only Lewis Libby, is not that the whole Plame affair was an innocuous venture into the workings of Beltway politics as usual. No. What this means is that thanks to Mr. Libby's obstructing and purgury, the prosecutor was unable to do his job. Which is to prove if the law was broken.

So if the law was not proven to be broken it is not due to the cooperation of the White House, as David Brooks keeps putting it, quite the opposite. It was the lack of cooperations of Lewis Libby at the very least that has resulted in what has cutely become a non-charge of perjury.

A charge that was somehow sufficient to impeach a President for only the second time in this countries history, yet when applied to chiefs of staff of Vice President, is now deemed a narrow escape from the rule of law.