Daniel has made a good point, and I would agree that Scooter Libby is no Martha Stewart. Martha built a business empire that added to people’s lives; Scooter helped promote the furtherance of a political empire that has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Enough said.

However, I stand by my earlier comments. Fitzgerald has spent millions of dollars “investigating” a non-crime, which should be against the law. Given that federal prosecutors regularly suborn perjury, I tend to look askance at prosecutors who depend upon indicting people for perjury when they have nothing else in their archives. These tend to be selective prosecutions, which is troublesome enough.

I do wish to emphasize that perjury goes to the heart of the system, and I believe that it is wrong. If Libby lied before a grand jury, then he should face whatever charges are given. However, if we are to be consistent, then Bill Clinton should have been indicted as well, not simply impeached.

That Byron York tends to be partisan in his writings (gee, that’s a shock) does not detract from the truth of what he was writing here. The standard should be truth, not who says it.

Martha Stewart was the victim of a setup by prosecutors. First, prosecutors and others in the system were leaking material from congressional investigations and grand jury testimony, and doing so is a felony. So, we know that real criminal activity took place; it is just that Martha did not do it.

The constant leaking of “information” was damaging the stock price of Stewart’s company, which was why the pressure was put on her to meet with the feds in the first place. For all the prosecutors’ talk about wanting to “help” stockholders of Martha Stewart Living, the strategy was to damage the company in hopes that she would try to stop the bleeding.

Well, Stewart had her visit, and then promptly was charged with violating Section 1001 of the federal code, the “lying to government officers” section. Keep in mind that there are no criminal charges for government officers who lie to people under investigation; in fact, lying is official policy.

So, Daniel is correct in one aspect, but not correct in another. Furthermore, I do not excuse perjury, but I sure as heck am going to condemn prosecutors who try to set up people when they don’t have anything else to do. Yes, Fitzgerald is an out-of-control, overzealous prosecutor.