We're ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille

Seeing how she wasn't a covert agent and all

"No one has been charged with leaking (Valerie) Plame Wilson's name to the press" -- last sentence in next to last paragraph of story in today's Boston Globe about the verdict in the Libby trial.

Go figure

"Libby did not speak to reporters" -- from an AP story last night about verdict in Libby trial.

Must be that limited DC jury pool

The AP story about the Libby verdict mentioned in the preceding post also contained this eye-opener -- one of the jurors, Denis Collins, is a "former Washington Post reporter." Huh ...?

Allow me to offer an alternative scenario to put this in perspective -- say that James Carville, in his capacity as chief of staff to future Vice President Barack Obama, was on trial for the same charges as Scooter, and one of the jurors was a "former reporter" for Fox News -- think that might raise an eyebrow at Moveon.org?

Verdict in Libby trial

... and with it the first story I've seen coming out of the trial, posted online this afternoon by the AP, to explicitly state that Scooter Libby "was not the source for the original column outing (Valerie) Plame." Yet another story, however, that manages to avoid mentioning the name of said source, former State Department official Richard Armitage.

Go figure

"Libby did not speak to reporters" -- from AP story last night about verdict in Libby trial.

You remember, the guy who outed Plame

Yet another story from the Associated Press (excuse me, The Associated Press) about the Scooter Libby trial that once again makes no mention of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage -- the government official who disclosed Valerie Plame's identity and job description to columnist Robert Novak.

I'm beginning to wonder if AP reporters and editors are running some kind of betting pool on this.

Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger weighed in today with a column today on "prosecutions that wreak ruin on a lifetime." Read the full transcript of theis "mock trail," Henninger suggests, "and one will see that the real subject is not justice, but the humiliation of the defendant."

Libby's trial, in "the national capital of illogic," has been exemplary in this regard, Henninger writes. "In December 2003, the prosecutor purports a crime has been committed by revealing a 'covert' CIA agent's identity to the press -- despite knowing then what the outside world learned nearly three years later -- that the revealer of the agent was a State Department official, Richard Armitage."

Details, details.

You remember, the guy who outed Plame

Surfing online this morning, I came across the second Associated Press story in a row this week on the trial of former Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby with the same glaring omission -- any mention of Richard Armitage, the former Deputy Secretary of State who was columnist Robert Novak's source in identifying Valerie Plame as the CIA operative who suggested sending her husband, Joe Wilson, on his mission to Niger.

Yeah, probably just a coincidence, and one that won't happen but several times more.