What a terrible letdown for liberals, said the National Review in an editorial. Last week, a special prosecutor revealed that presidential guru Karl Rove would not be indicted in the 'œoverblown leak case' involving CIA operative Valerie Plame. For three years, Democrats and the media have fantasized that the architect of President Bush's greatest political triumphs would be 'œfrog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs' for telling reporters that Plame was a CIA agent. Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joe Wilson, was a critic of the Iraq war; in the story line peddled by the left, Rove and other White House fiends exacted retribution—and violated national security law—by revealing Plame's identity. Now that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided it was all 'œmuch ado about nothing,' said Dan Thomasson in The Washington Times, Rove can again focus on kicking Democratic keister on Election Day. For their part, Democrats might want to consider running on some actual ideas this November, rather than hoping to be bailed out by 'œpolitically tainted investigations of dubious importance.'
The press has some soul-searching to do, said Michael Barone in The Wall Street Journal. It was the mainstream media that loudly clamored for this investigation, in hopes it might lead to another Watergate and bring down the Bush administration. 'œTalk of impeachment was in the air.' But the witch hunt backfired: Lewis 'œScooter' Libby, the assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted for allegedly leaking Plame's name, but not until Fitzgerald's hunt for the leakers led to the jailing of then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Several news organizations were forced to turn over confidential notes. The trust between reporters and anonymous sources was frayed. For the media, the cost of turning a minor political tempest into a major criminal inquiry has been very large indeed.
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