I caught the last half of the Fitzgerald press conference yesterday, and the first thing you have to say is how dramatically he contrasts with Ken Starr. This guy is not a sanctimonious ideologue on a mission from God. He's not somebody with an axe to grind. He exudes integrity, and he's the kind of guy every social system needs to make sure things don't get too out of whack.
Because out of whack things have gotten. And as I have remarked in earlier posts, I've felt that this administration in its promotion of all of its deceptions and spin has lost touch with what is the unspun truth. All that matters is the semblance of truth, a storyline that they themselves have come to believe as true because, well, "What is truth? We have the power; we create our own truth. And anyway, we're the good guys. If we deceive, it's in the service of the good." It's bad enough to deceive, but to believe in your own deceptions is mental illness.
Well it's this culture of deception and self-deception that Fitzgerald has indicted, not just Scooter Libby the man. He's the one who will have to pay, and like Lindy England, he's culpable, but more than likely he was just doing what was expected of him, going with the flow. It's fitting that the first charges should be about perjury, because as Fitzgerald so eloquently stated in his defense of the perjury charge, the whole system depends on people telling the truth.