I'm not sure how the conviction of Lewis Libby will affect the world, other than that Jay Leno will have a joke tonight about how some convicts will have a nice, spanking new Scooter to ride around the yard. Of course, we doubt that Mr. Libby will spend one night behind bars. His lawyers can easily run out the clock on appeals until George W. Bush is a lame-enough duck to issue a pardon. I wonder if the conviction means anything beyond being another in a long list of slaps to the Bush/Cheney mob.
The saddest thing to me about all this is how cynical we've all gotten with regard to the judicial system in this country. Those who'd like to see Bush 'n' Cheney brought down were so sure that Libby was, as they say in Doonesbury, "Guilty, guilty, guilty!" Those who've cast their political/emotional lot with the G.O.P. are so sure there was no harm, no foul, no case. We have this unfortunate tendency to believe that the correct verdict in any case is the one that serves our political wish list. Obviously, someone is not innocent just because they're more or less on my side, just as they aren't guilty just because they're on the other team. But it sure doesn't play out that way in Internet debates, does it?