Maybe it's the two years of intense study of criminal law, but I am a little fascinated by the Scooter Libby trial, though mostly by the reaction of his supporters. When the verdict came down guilty on four counts, I will admit that I trolled a little on the conservative websites to find out the reactions over there. I am now convinced that Americans are idiots. Not all, of course. Maybe just bloggers and those that comment on them. You would think that outing an American spy for political revenge would be something everyone could line up with ("She wasn't covert!" they cry. "Joe Wilson is a partisan liar!" they scream. Number two has nothing to do with anything, and number one makes sense until you wonder, "if Valerie Plame wasn't a covert agent, then why all the fuss - and more specifically, why did GWB promise to find out who leaked her name and expunge the culprit from the White House? And why, oh why, did Scooter lie about it to the grand jury? And let's make no mistake - Scooter did lie to the grand jury, as well as the FBI. He intentionally hindered a federal investigation regarding the outing of Ms. Plame, who was probably an undercover CIA operative working diligently to keep America safe from terrorists, and if she wasn't undercover at the time (who can be sure?), why lie about it?). These bloggers and commentators often proclaim, "Of course they found him guilty - it's a DC jury." A DC jury? I thought the problem with DC juries is that they were loathe to convict, thereby letting all sorts of hardened thugs back out on the street to make everyone's life a little more miserable, all for the sake of a little racial and political correctness. That's what big city juries do. Well, this particular DC jury did convict. After a lot of deliberation, I might add. I was under the impression that the conservatives were tough on crime.
This jury convicted a man of four actual crimes (yes Virginia, these are crimes - felonies, in fact) that he, Scooter, without question, committed. Even his defense attorney admitted that he committed these acts, which are forbidden by the criminal code.
