But I couldn't resist weighing in on this:

I doubt that Libby could have been successfully prosecuted without the Democrats in power in the legislative branch. You may feel differently, but I think his trial was affected by the Democratic majority. Since politics is not a lab science we can not know for certain.

Fitzgerald investigated the Plame leak from late '03 through the fall of '05, when he concluded the main part of his investigation and indicted Libby. During all of this time Repubs controlled congress. The trial took place from January through March of '07, when of course Dems were in the majority. But to suggest that judge Walton--a Republican Bush appointeee--or the jury were swayed by this is absurd, and without any evidence, hardly worth taking seriously.

What's far more important is who controlled congress during the investigation and leading up to the trial, when there were many opportunities to try to manipulate the proceedings. And yet despite a GOP majority, no such attempts succeeded (assuming that they were attempted--tampering with a federal investigation is an extremely serious matter). But as for the trial, I simply do not see how the Dems taking over in any way swayed either the jury or judge, or made Fitz a more aggressive prosecuter.

You really need to provide either evidence or a convincing argument to back this up if you want it to be taken seriously. "I think" is not an argument. Neither is claiming that the law is not science. Although, as in science, in law you do have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt, which you have not even begun to do. Not trying to me overly harsh here but when you make such outlandish statements here, you really do need to back them up with something.

Cheers.

bucky1--I realize that you told me WHAT you think, but my point was that on this blog, you need to explain WHY you think this in some detail that makes sense and is convincing and backed up by facts to be taken seriously, which you have not done. Instead, you speculated that witnesses might not have been as helpful, the CIA might have played dirty tricks, Fitz might have held back, etc., without elaborating. Sure, ANYTHING's possible, but to get from possible to plausible, one has to explain HOW and WHY, in some detail. You did not. You just offered your opinion, which is hardly the same thing as an argument.

I would agree, though, that Dems taking the majority likely did not HURT the outcome of this case, and MIGHT have helped it. But I have absolutely no way of determining or proving this so it's sheer speculation and not a very productive angle to explore without supporting evidence.

WT--your mentioning how the FBI never differentiated between true subversives and law-abiding (or at most peaceful civilly disobeying) protesters hit home as I watched a documentary on the fall of Saigon last night, which featured a clip of some Nixonian thug (I think it was Ehrlichman) testifying and essentially saying that there are limits to the extent that people can exercize their democratic rights, and that if they are endangering the country (as determined by people like him, of course) when they are doing this, then the law has every right to go after them. Ugh, doesn't that sound familiar.