WEAK ARGUMENTS AGAINST SCOOTER'S SENTENCE

Here's something almost beyond imagination from Richard Cohen writing today in the Washington Post. He defends Scooter Libby and says prosecutor Fitzgerald was wrong in prosecuting him.

"As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months."

First of all, what is Cohen talking about when he denigrates those of us who suspect and believe the whole casus belli was a set-up led by Bush and Cheney?

Second, I admit, I cheered upon hearing of Scooter's conviction. If Libby had not lied to the FBI, the federal grand jury and to Fitz, maybe we would all know the full extent of the web of deceit spun by Bush and Cheney in taking the United States to an unjustified war.

Third, the fact that no one was charged with leaking Valerie Plame's CIA identity has nothing to do with the propriety of Scooter being sentenced to 30 months. His deserved sentence show what matters is telling the truth under oath and in court.