FYI

The other day I sent an e-mail to Paul Reynolds seeking a response to the following:

In his press conference, Patrick Fitzgerald explicitly disavowed the notion that the indictments [of Scooter Libby] reflected in any way on the Iraq war or justifications for it. He said:

"This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel….The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction.

And I think anyone's who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that."

How do you square what he said with the claim in your recent article that the indictments "raise serious questions about how the Bush administration sought to justify the war against Iraq?

This was his response:

I'm not getting into [it]. Otherwise this could go on indefinitely. I would simply add that prosecutors necessarily have a narrow focus. He could hardly say it was a political prosecution.

He later added:

Prosecutors talk simply about indictments. Journalists (and bloggers) can range more widely.

Make of that what you will. I would only point out that the issue of a "political prosecution" is a non sequitur. Even a non-political prosecution can provide insight into or raise political controversies, and Fitzgerald explicitly rejected the notion that his indictments did so with regard to the war...a rejection, it should be added, that is fully vindicated by a reading of the indictments.