It’s good he was convicted. It’s about time somebody in our kleptocracy faced some kind of responsibility for SOMEthing. But, let’s face it, Libby is the smallest of potatoes.

Walk it back: There was a cover up. The cover up was about who made known the name of a CIA agent. The name was made known for revenge on her husband. The husband’s crime was pointing out that Niger was not selling the raw materials for nuclear bombs to Saddam Hussein. There were documents, but the documents were childishly fake. Whoever had forged them had apparently not even bothered to get the right seal on the stationery.

And that’s where the story has sat. It seems to me that the burning question is who forged the damn documents? That should lead straight to the answer we really need, which is why?

Boring version: some two-bit secret agent wanted to make some money by selling the things to gullible journalist(s). It was a convenient story for the Cheney Administration, so they took it and ran with it. If this is the right version, why was Berlusconi’s government (on whose watch the forgeries happened) so obstructionist about finding the culprit?

Staggering version: a real investigation would trace the forgeries back to an interested government, who wanted something suitable for scaring people into war. The amateurish nature of the forgeries argues against this. But the energy with which governments are not looking for the answer argues for it.

Fabricating evidence in a rush to war goes far beyond lying about it.

You see why Scooter and the pathetic cover up is barely a fingernail scratch on the surface.