At least two friends have criticized me for defending Scooter Libby against the ravages of political justice. One being Jonathan Chait who takes me on for saying that I know that Libby has not profited--i.e., retained cash--from the Libby Defense Fund. He complains that I recite no facts. Well, I get my facts from the Libby Defense Fund on whose board I sit. His grievance is really against Chris Orr who first made the charge on this web-site and who I wrote hadn't the slightest idea of the finances of the Libby case and still accused Libby of making financial gains from his troubles. Is that not "nonsense" and "malevolent nonsense," at that? Why doesn't Chait complain about Orr's irresponsible allegations? Andrew Sullivan complains that I vent. My old friend (and a former editor of TNR who appears frequently--but not frequently enough--in the mag and in this space) knows that literary style very well, being an accomplished venter himself. He complains about my having written that basically the entire case is rooted in political motives. We now all know--and many knew before the fact was released--that Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at State, was the first one who leaked Valerie Plame's name. It is inconceivable that Justice didn't know it, and it is an unexceptionable fact that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew it. He knew it all through his labors against Libby. Since the author of the crime--and I am not sure it was exactly a crime--was known to the principals why was a whole political trial manufactured to charge and convict Libby of perjury for an act he did not commit?