Jeffrey Rosen, the highly respected legal affairs writer for The New Republic, borrowing from John Tierney, dubs the indictment of former Cheney Chief-of-Staff Lewis Libby "Nadagate." It's the investigation about nothing. See Rosen's piece here (free registration required). Rosen argues persuasively that the indictment of Libby represents prosecutorial overreach. I think this paragraph sums it up nicely:
Just as Democrats were right to denounce Starr for criminalizing insignificant and immaterial lies, Republicans are right to denounce Fitzgerald for the criminalization of political differences. It's been clear from the beginning that Libby, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney were trying to discredit a critic of the administration, not trying to disclose the identity of a covert agent. But what makes Nadagate even worse than Monicagate is its effect on the First Amendment. Never mind whether Judith Miller of the Times is a trustworthy journalist: She and Matthew Cooper of Time were correct to fear the spectacle not only of having to appear before a grand jury but also of being charged themselves with violating national security laws. And, as the columnist Walter Shapiro notes, they were also correct to fear the costs of appearing in a public trial talking about their previously off-the-record conversations with their sources--costs that might make national security reporting far harder in the future.
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