Libby = Clinton: Most Specious Comparison Ever
1. The CIA demanded an invesitgation from the Justice Department. Presumably the CIA would know which of its operatives were covert, right? If Valerie Plame Wilson was no longer covert as of 2003, would the CIA have cared if her identity was leaked?
2. The Whitewater investigation (which grew to Paula Jones and eventually Monica Lewinsky and impeachment) was completely partisan. The Plame invesitgation, leading to the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald, was entirely a GOP operation. Democrats weren't in power then. This was the CIA, led by a Republican, demanding an investigation from Justice, headed by a Republican, of a possible leak by senior figures in a Republican White House.
3. As noted, the CIA leak case did NOT start out as one thing -- an investigation of a land deal in Arkansas -- and then morph into sexual harassment and infidelity. This investigation started as a look into whether the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was violated, and the charges against Libby involved how Scooter had lied to the grand jury and the FBI.while that investigation was going on. The very essence of "obstruction of justice."
4. Did Pat Fitzgerald use a "perjury trap" on Libby -- that is, asked him a question that he knew Libby would have to lie about? Considering the question was something like, "Did you reveal to members of the media that Ms. Plame was a CIA operative?" I don't see where the trap is. It's either yes or no. And as the trial showed, the answer was verifiable; Libby's "no" was shown to be a lie, hence the conviction on four of five counts.
Compare this to Starr's interrogation of Bill Clinton, in which the questions posed wer both far more vague and embarrassing, like: Name every woman you've had an extramarital affair with in the last 10 years, and Have you put a cigar in a woman's (not your wife's) vagina?
Given the two cases, why would the subjects lie? Clinton didn't want it known that he was doing things with cigars to interns in the Oval Office. Knowledge of these sexual encounters would hurt his marriage, his daughter and his reputation -- but it didn't increase the deficit by billions of dollars and didn't cost the life of a single American servicemember.
Libby, on the other hand, KNEW it would be politically damaging if the nation knew his Administration was exposing CIA operatives in an effort to discredit a man who was himself discrediting the stated reasons for going into Iraq as without merit.
5. If Libby's actions were legitimate and innocent, why would he lie about it to a prosecutor and risk jail?
6. Clinton was investigated by a man who spent six years and $40 million under a special prosecutor statute. When it was finally allowed to expire, even Republicans admitted it was being misused as a partisan cudgel. Starr, the special prosecutor, never hid the fact that he was after Clinton. Fitzgerald, on the other had, was a highly-regarded, Republican-appointed federal prosecutor. Until, of course, he did his job and charged a neoconservative insider. As a direct result, now he is portrayed as the worst kind of overzealous liberal prosecutorial hack. Hogwash.
Side note: Had justice truly been served, this trial would have taken place prior to the 2006 election...or een before the 2004 election, since Fitzgerald had all teh necesary pieces to prosecute even then.