1 Boring Old Man

ORDERED that jury selection shall begin on January 16, 2007, with the trial commencing immediately thereafter. It is further

ORDERED, as set forth in the Court’s February 3, 2006 scheduling order, that the parties shall file motions in limine regarding any evidentiary issues they believe will be contested at trial by October 26, 2006, oppositions shall be filed by November 9, 2006, and replies shall be filed by November 15, 2006. It is further

ORDERED, as set forth in the Court’s February 3, 2006 scheduling order, that proposed voir dire questions and jury instructions shall be submitted to the Court by November 13, 2006.

And Vice President Dick Cheney is on the witness list^[1][2][3].  Frankly, who cares about Libby anymore. He’s out of government, that’s good. What matters more than the outcome of the trial is what light the trial sheds on the truth. There is little question that Libby was brokering the outing of Valerie Plame, or that he was part of the fallacious prewar campaign to get us into war with Iraq along with his boss. At issue is will either he or Cheney tell the truth on the stand? I think our expectation is that a convicted Libby will be pardoned. So, what is the incentive for either he or his boss to tell the truth?

It’s really a strange situation to expect the Vice President and his Chief of Staff to lie in a courtroom, and to be holding out for the possibility that Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be able to expose those lies in court. Fitzgerald has come through before. To me, the question is will the scope of what’s allowed in the trial be broad enough to allow us to gain some understanding of how all of that C.I.A. Leak business was executed, and with luck, give us a bit of a window into the prewar intelligence deceit as well? Hope springs eternal…