Why intellectuals disdain the military!

What are Syria's intentions? (See 1 below.)

Ban Ki-moon, the new UN head, has decided to get out of his chair and visit the Middle East. Wonders never cease! (See 2 below.)

James Holmes, an associate professor at The Naval War College, attempts to explain why intellectuals have a disdain for the military. (From my perspective they believe their intellectual capability makes them superior to those who engage in fighting.)(See 3 below.)

In her latest diatribe, Caroline Glick, oozes contempt for Olmert and also discusses the pluses the West will gain from the capture (she claims defection) of Asgari and what he reveals about Iran. (I recently wrote that we stand in awe of Iran which is a pathetic third world nation in pursuit of a first class ability to destroy its enemies. Rather than treat them as they deserve to be treated we have concocted an obsequious diplomatic approach which allows the Mullahs to play us for fools.)(See 4 below.)

While we cut funding for child care a US agency funds terrorists seeking higher education. (See 5 below.)

Krauthammer lays it on Fitzgerald. (The trial of Scooter Libby is a travesty of over-reach by a special prosecutor who knew, at the beginning, who leaked whatever but refused to stop there. So Fitzgerald kept up his pursuit until he nailed someone for perjury about facts that pertained not to the original case but a tributary matter which had branched off from his initial charge. I am not defending Libby for any mistake he made but Krauthammer's comparison with blatant lying by the Clintons may be raking over old coals but it has relevance for comparative purposes.)(See 6 below.)

Dick





1) Quoting three Israeli military and two government sources, the French news agency AFP reports the Syrian army has accelerated its deployment of medium and long-range rockets capable of striking major towns across northern Israel.

Sources note the timing of the unusual disclosure, the day before the Iraqi neighbors’ conference in Baghdad. It appears to be aimed at deterring Syria from being tempted into military action to ease the sense of isolation which the Baghdad meeting will tend to aggravate.

In its detailed report, AFP discloses that most of the Syrian rockets positioned on Israel’s border are 220 mm with a range of 70 km and 302 mm rockets with a reach of 100 km, AFP reports. The latter could reach Israel’s third largest port city of Haifa and its industries, as well as Tiberias and Kiryat Shemona.

Many are hidden in underground chambers and camouflaged silos. The Israeli sources said Syria had built a system of fortified underground tunnels along its border with Israel. They also believed Syria had deployed several FROG rocket launchers with a 550-kilogram warhead and 70-km range in areas between the border and the capital Damascus, 40 km away.

Syria concentrates most of its long-range surface missiles in the north. Its decision to bring them so close to the border may indicate that Damascus is seriously thinking of attacking Israel.

Military sources report that this redeployment indicates Syria is anticipating an Israeli response to a potential attack by moving tank and armored infantry across the border to strike the rocket formations. The FROG rockets would be used against this incursion.

AFP’s sources see the deployment as an indication that Damascus may be preparing for future “low intensity warfare.” The massive deployment of well-entrenched rockets poses “a real strategic threat” to Israel.

Those sources therefore rebut the low expectations of war with Syria this summer as voiced by Israel’s chief of staff and military intelligence chiefs on Feb. 25. At the time, military experts challenged this evaluation and criticized Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi for reflecting the Olmert government minister’s political line which is one of unquestioning alignment with the current US-Saudi strategy regardless of Israel’s national interests.

A senior government official also told AFP: Israel has absolute superiority in several fields of warfare,” referring to advanced air force and “smart” weapons.

Russia as been selling Syria thousands more advanced anti-tank missiles capable of piercing tank armor of the types which reached Hizballah from Syria in last year’s conflict.

2) UN chief announces trip to Israel, Palestinian Authority

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories later this month in an effort to help revive the peace process between the two sides.

Ban said he would make the trip, which will include a stop in Lebanon, on his way to the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia on March 28-29.

Ban said he chose the Middle East for his second major overseas trip as UN chief because security in the Middle East is one of the most important issues which we are now facing. He visited several African countries last month.

He singled out the Israel-Palestinian conflict as one of the most pressing in the region, saying resolving it would create a conducive political atmosphere for the resolution of other issues in the Middle East.

"I'm looking forward to, first of all, a meeting with leaders in the region and making myself available for any consultation and to make contribution to (the) peace process," he said.

Ban has been involved in U.S.-backed efforts to restart the Israel-Palestinian peace effort after a six-year freeze. He said he would participate in two months in another round of talks among the so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers - the UN, the U.S., the European Union and Russia.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet for the second time in a month in an effort to keep their line of communication open.

3) Why Do Intellectuals Oppose the Military?
By James L. Holmes

Almost a decade ago the late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick penned an essay asking "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" That is, why would those who live well reject the open society that allows them to do so? The essay was less a venture in social science than a thought experiment about the upbringing of intellectuals and the outsized influence this group exerts on society. Much of what Nozick says about intellectuals' reflexive disdain for capitalism also helps explain their disdain toward the military - and even the differences are intriguing. So his essay is worth pondering today as we survey civil-military relations in a nation at war.

Whom are we talking about? In his book Intellectuals, Paul Johnson defines a member of this elite group in general terms, as "someone who thinks ideas are more important than people." By contrast, Nozick confines his attentions to "wordsmith intellectuals" concentrated in professions such as the academy, print and electronic journalism, and government. He deems "numbersmiths" working in the sciences, business, and other quantitative fields less prone to anti-capitalist animus, despite similar intelligence and academic attainment. (Why this should be true warrants looking into.)

Schooling, maintains Nozick, breeds in intellectuals a sense of superiority, and with it a sense of entitlement to the highest rewards society has to offer - not just top salaries but praise comparable to that lavished on them by their teachers. After completing their formal academic training in the centralized environment of the classroom, intellectuals go forth into a seemingly chaotic capitalist society, which purports to reward individual citizens by merit but in fact applies a different standard of merit from the one imparted in the classroom.

So an open, capitalist society falls just short of satisfying intellectuals' sense of entitlement. At least three points are worth teasing out of Nozick's essay. One, capitalist society allows wordsmiths to live comfortable lives-but those who excel outside the classroom often reap the highest material rewards. Entrepreneurship in business or other applied disciplines -- disciplines that may or may not depend on pure academic knowledge or verbal dexterity -- can bring a far more extravagant lifestyle than a career in journalism, government, or the academy.

This runs afoul of intellectuals' sense of their place in the natural pecking order. But it should have little bearing on intellectuals' attitudes toward the armed services, given the less-than-generous salaries and benefits paid to soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Servicemen rank well below wordsmith intellectuals from a purely material standpoint. This disparity should seem to reinforce intellectuals' sense of superiority.

But, American society reserves the highest respect and admiration not for professors or journalists but for those in practical disciplines such as the armed forces, law enforcement, firefighting, or emergency medicine. Americans typically rate the military at or near the top of the nation's institutions, with journalism and lawmakers near or at the bottom. This status deficit rankles intellectuals. While America certainly needs academic skill and enterprise, an open society maddeningly-prizes other things as much as if not more than the ability to turn a clever phrase.

Success in such a society comes in large part from applied intellect, amplified by such virtues as technical proficiency and physical and moral courage. Schooling is not primarily responsible for instilling these virtues. Disaffection follows when society frustrates intellectuals' lofty expectations. Awarding superior status to people they learned in the schoolhouse to regard as their inferiors must trigger a certain revulsion.

Nozick observes that academic training teaches intellectuals to prefer a centralized environment in which an authority figure, not the vagaries of the market, sets standards and dispenses rewards and punishments according to certain rational standards. Does this relate to intellectuals' skepticism toward military service? It's unclear. The armed forces are nothing if not regimented institutions, and thus they should seemingly appeal to wordsmiths. An old joke in the ranks points out how odd it is that it takes a socialized institution like the military to defend liberty.

But here, too, the military allocates rewards-medals, ribbons, written evaluations-based on criteria that cut against the intellectual grain. While training and education provide the foundation for excellence in the armed forces, servicemen are judged primarily by factors such as technical acumen and valor under fire. In other words, Americans acclaim the military for reasons that have little to do with schooling-calling into question wordsmith intellectuals' feeling of superiority, and indeed their entire worldview.

Do intellectuals' attitudes even matter, given their predilection for the abstract over the concrete and for ideas over action? Yes, says Nozick. While wordsmiths cannot dictate the outcome of national discourse, they do set the terms of debate.

"They shape our ideas and images of society; they state the policy alternatives bureaucracies consider. From treatises to slogans, they give us the sentences to express ourselves. Their opposition matters, especially in a society that depends increasingly on the explicit formulation and dissemination of information."

Nozick left his inquiry open-ended, commending it to the study of social scientists, and so will I. Some enterprising social scientist ought to examine these matters in a sustained, rigorous manner. If wordsmith intellectuals indeed frame debates on affairs of state-in particular war and peace-then their views and prejudices must be taken into account in public discourse. Our system of civil-military relations could depend on it.

4)Caroline Glick: Three cheers for Israeli democracy (gives resiliency Iran lacks)

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is certain that he has nothing to be ashamed of.
As the first Israeli leader to have led the country to military defeat,
Olmert is proud of his performance in office and thinks that we should be,
too.

Thursday, Ha'aretz reported the gist of Olmert's February 1 testimony before
the Winograd Committee which he appointed to investigate the government and
IDF's (mis)handling of the war last summer against Iran's Lebanese proxy
Hizbullah. The Ha'aretz story was one of only a handful of reports detailing
testimony brought before the commission and so it is reasonable to assume
that Olmert's office, rather than the commission members, was the source of
the story. Olmert's advisers presumably believe that publishing their spin on his testimony will deflect criticism away from him and onto the IDF and so buy the premier more time in office in spite of the fact that only 3 percent of the public supports him.

In his testimony before his hand-picked investigators, Olmert claimed that
last March he had approved a contingency plan for war against Hizbullah in
the event that Hizbullah abducted IDF soldiers along the Lebanese border.
Those plans, Olmert claimed, involved the conducting of an air campaign and
a small-scale ground campaign against Hizbullah with the goal of destroying
its missile arsenal and forcing it to disarm in accordance with UN Security
Council Resolution 1559.

Olmert stated that he only ordered the helter-skelter large-scale,
inconclusive 48-hour ground offensive at the end of the war because the IDF's small-scale ground operations until that time had been unsuccessful. He ordered the large-scale offensive, in which 33 soldiers were killed just before their comrades were ordered to retreat, because he wanted to get a better cease-fire resolution at the UN Security Council. This is the case, he argues, in spite of the fact that the Security Council had already unanimously passed the resolution before the offensive began.

"Improved" Security Council Resolution 1701 is hailed by Olmert and his
colleagues Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz as a brilliant, pro-Israel document that was well worth the sacrifice. They claim this in spite of the fact that 1701 makes no mention of either Iran or Syria; treats Israel, a UN member nation, and Hizbullah, an illegal terrorist organization, as equals; treats the Saniora Government in Lebanon which collaborated throughout the war with Hizbullah as a positive force; enhances the role of UNIFIL in spite of the fact that its forces reported IDF troop movements in real time on their Web site; and has enabled Hizbullah to rearm in broad daylight.

Olmert's testimony to the Winograd Commission is interesting for two
reasons. First, if Olmert was telling the truth then, far from clearing his
name, he incriminated himself. By March 2006, the IDF had war-gamed his
chosen strategy of an air campaign with a limited ground component. The
strategy had failed. The fact that he chose it anyway casts doubt on his
competence to lead the country in war. Moreover, while the public understood
just days after the war broke out that it was imperative to call up the
reserves and launch a large-scale ground offensive, Olmert clung to his
failed air-based strategy until the end stages of the war. He called up the
reservists so late that they had insufficient time to train for their
missions.

Olmert's testimony, like his office's apparent decision to leak it to the
media, is also interesting for the arrogance it betrayed.

Olmert told us his version of his testimony because he thought we would
accept it without question. If he had thought we would question him, it is
hard to imagine he would have revealed what he said because his defenses are
so easily taken apart. Indeed, within hours of the Ha'aretz report, MK Yuval Steinitz, the former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, did just that when he told Israel Radio how strange Olmert's statements are. If he
ordered the IDF to prepare for war, Steinitz asked, why did the IDF do
nothing to prepare for war? If he had a plan to respond to the abduction of
IDF soldiers with a large-scale military campaign, then why did he slash the
IDF's budget by a half a billion shekels two months before the war?

With 57 percent of Israelis praying for new elections, it is hard to see how
Olmert and his colleagues can ever regain the public trust. But the fact
that their careers are about to end, while no doubt tragic for them, is a
happy occasion for Israeli society as a whole and a great victory for
Israeli democracy.

It is because of the openness of Israeli society that we are able to have a
public debate about what happened last summer in Lebanon and so identify those at fault and the notions that led them to their failures. And it is only by properly identifying both the failed officials and their failed ideas that the State of Israel will be able to safeguard its security in the future.

WITH AN eye towards safeguarding Israel's security, it is instructive to
compare Olmert's political woes versus Israeli society's democratic resilience to the panicked atmosphere in Iran this week in the aftermath of former deputy defense minister and former Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander Ali Rez Asgari's apparent defection to the West.

The IRGC is responsible for both Iran's nuclear weapons program and its terror armies. Its forces reportedly both develop and guard Iran's nuclear installations. As to terror, the IRGC is in direct command of Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and the Mahdi Army in Iraq. It exerts a large degree of control and influence over other groups like al-Qaida, Fatah and Hamas which receive money, training, arms and logistical support from the IRGC.

In light of the IRGC's central role in the Iranian regime's most secret
endeavors, there can be little doubt that Asgari's information will have
strategic value for the US, Israel and other Western countries in assessing
Iran's plans, capabilities and logistics.

Here it is useful to compare Teheran's hysteria over Asgari's defection with
Israel's muted reaction when IDF (res.) Col. and would-be drug dealer
Elhanan Tannenbaum was abducted by Hizbullah to Lebanon in 2000. As a senior
reserves officer, Tanenbaum was privy to top secret information relating to
the IDF's Artillery Corps where he served. But in spite of the clear damage
that Tannenbaum no doubt wrought during his years of captivity, he did not
have the capability to do anywhere near the level of damage to Israel's
weapons' systems as Asgari apparently can cause for Iran. No doubt, if a
member of the IDF's General Staff were abducted by Iran, he too would be
capable of causing far less strategic damage to Israel than Asgari can cause
to the mullahs.

The reason that Israeli commanders who fall into enemy hands can harm
Israel's national security less that an Iranian commander who defects to the
West can harm the mullahs is because Israel is an open and free society and
Iran is a closed and unfree society. In free societies, much of what would
be considered top secret information in a closed society is openly debated.
Senior officials, who in a closed society like Iran are above scrutiny, are
under constant scrutiny in Israel. Criticism of policies - which, as the
case of Olmert's political demise makes clear - is necessary for correcting
mistakes and moving forward, is the stock-in-trade of open societies. In
closed societies, those that criticize policies risk death, torture and
imprisonment for their actions.

Because open societies like Israel are information societies, their strength
is based not on hiding information from their citizens but in galvanizing
their citizens' knowledge and talents to progress and defend themselves. In
contrast, since by their nature closed societies maintain control by
concentrating power and information in the hands of as few people as
possible, a member of the powerful few who defects to an open society can do
a great deal of damage to the regime.

By the same token, since the main precondition for progress in open
societies is public debate, when Israeli students protest against government
policies, no one worries that their protests will destroy the regime. But in
closed societies, criticism of the regime is liable to open a Pandora's Box
that can bring about the regime's overthrow.

That this is the case is obvious when observing the mullahs' obsession with
both quelling dissent and preventing the fact that
most sectors of Iranian society oppose their rule from being reported by the
media.

In this vein, Asgari's defection was not the only setback the ayatollahs
suffered this week. The broadcast of a massive student protest against
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his recent visit to Teheran
University was another major blow to the regime. The footage, which was
broadcast on France 2, was taken by cellular phone video cameras. It showed
heroic students standing on stage next to Ahmadinejad calling him a dictator
and daring him to arrest them, as hundreds in the audience cheered them on
while burning Ahmadinejad's photograph.

For the regime in Teheran, the widely circulated film was a huge disaster.
Now it is clear to the world that although the mullahs may present a unified
front, their people do not support them.

Here it is important to emphasize that the mullahs' panic will in no way
impact their commitment to carrying out a nuclear holocaust. What it does
show however, is that the regime is anything but all-powerful. Indeed it is
highly susceptible to a concerted campaign to overthrow it.

Like all closed societies, the strength of the Iranian regime is built on
the twin foundations of internal repression and external aggression. But also like in all closed societies, the mullahs suffer from an inability to identify mistakes and correct them or build their future on
the power of their people who hate them.

When the Olmert government's political collapse and Iran's strategic
setbacks are taken together, one can safely say that this has been a fairly
good week. Olmert's exposure of his incompetence has set the course for his
government's replacement by a government capable of defending Israel. Then
too, the exposure of Iran's inherent weaknesses by Asgari and the students
at Teheran University points out a clear path towards preventing the regime
from carrying out it planned nuclear holocaust while liberating the Iranian
people from its tyranny.

5) WASHINGTON TIMES: School linked to Hamas gets US cash
By Joel Mowbray

Millions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid have been given in the past several years to two Palestinian universities—one of them controlled by Hamas—that have participated in the advocacy, support or glorification of terrorism. The funding—principally in scholarships to individual students—is being eyed by several members of Congress and their aides, who say they may violate U.S. law.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided more than $140,000 in assistance to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza—including scholarships to 49 of its students—since Congress changed the law in 2004 to restrict aid to entities or individuals “involved in or advocating terrorist activity.”

No U.S. assistance was directed to Islamic University last year, but USAID continues to fund multimillion-dollar programs through the American Near East Refugee Aid program (ANERA), which is building a high-tech facility for the school. U.S. law requires that any recipient of U.S. aid have no association with terrorists.

USAID also gave $2.3 million in aid last year to Al-Quds University, which has student groups affiliated with designated terrorist organizations on campus and last month held a weeklong celebration of the man credited with designing and building the first suicide belts more than a decade ago.

“It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayer dollars are going toward institutions that support terrorists,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. “These loopholes must be closed so that taxpayer funds are used for their intended purpose and not to subsidize terrorism and the promotion of hatred towards Israel and the United States.”

Rep. Nita Lowey, New York Democrat and chairwoman of the committee responsible for USAID funding, said, “It goes without saying that U.S. taxpayer dollars should absolutely never be used for advocating or honoring terrorist activity. Support for terrorists and terrorism in any shape or form is unacceptable.”

USAID adamantly denies that it has violated any laws. “Every grant we give, every bit of assistance we provide, we do in a way that is fully compliant with the law,” said a USAID official, who agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity.

In the case of Islamic University, the official said, USAID vetted the school president, the vice president of academic affairs and the dean of the library. It provided $12,000 worth of computers and materials to the school’s library. Students are vetted for connections to terrorism before being granted scholarships, the official added, but, “We don’t follow every student and track every meeting they go to.” Unlike other U.S. aid recipients, the scholarship students have not been required to sign pledges not to participate in terrorism.

The latest Congressional interest in USAID’s funding in the West Bank and Gaza was triggered by a report from the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a pro-Israel group which monitors the Palestinian press. Included in the report were translations of several Palestinian newspaper articles that discuss the activities of student chapters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad at Al Quds University and other Palestinian schools assisted by USAID since 2005. Hamas and Islamic Jihad both are on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

The USAID official did not deny that student groups affiliated with terrorist organizations were on campuses of schools assisted by the agency, but stressed that such organizations receive minimal support from the schools and are not part of “the official administrative structure.”

Aides to several Congressmen said they were most troubled by USAID assistance to Islamic University in Gaza City, which is openly controlled by Hamas leaders. The organization held a two-day conference in 2005 on the “martyrdom” of former Hamas spiritual leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. Sheikh Yassin founded the school in 1978.

Sheikh Yassin and former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi both used Islamic University as a base, as has Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian government and a member of the school's board of trustees.

Sixteen Islamic University lecturers and teachers are elected Hamas members of the Palestinian legislature. In 2005, 78 percent of the student council vote went to Hamas, according to a Palestinian newspaper article provided by Palestinian Media Watch.

When challenged by Congress last year on its assistance to the school, USAID noted that the funding was not renewed in 2006. Nonetheless, the agency is providing millions in grants to ANERA, which is building a high-tech facility in Gaza City for the university. California-based Intel Corp. is underwriting the project.

In a document USAID sent to Congress last year, USAID wrote that ANERA "is required to ensure that no assistance is provided to terrorist organizations or individuals associated with terrorist activities, regardless of whether or not the activity involves USG funding."

Also causing Congressional concern is a PMW report that Al-Quds University last month held a weeklong celebration honoring Yahya Ayyash, the Hamas leader known as "the shahid (martyr) engineer." He is credited with creating the first suicide belts in the mid-1990s and training the next generation of suicide bomb makers.

The opening event, as reported by a Palestinian newspaper and found in the PMW report, included a speech by university administrator Yusuf Dhiyab, “who discussed shahids and the mark that the shahids left on the history of the Palestinian nation and how they succeeded in uniting the nation.”

In September, USAID announced an "extraordinary one-time" issuance of 2,000 scholarships for Palestinian students attending Al Quds University at a total cost of $2.2 million, according to USAID. Simultaneously, USAID provided $100,000 in "in-kind assistance" to Al Quds University.

In a written statement, USAID said Al Quds University requested emergency assistance last summer, and the $2.3 million was offered because “strong U.S. support existed for assistance to moderate Palestinian leaders.” The statement singled out Al Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh as “one such prominent and respected figure.”

But Mr. Nusseibeh appeared on the al-Jazeera satellite channel in 2002 with Hamas politbureau chief Khaled Mashaal and Um Nidal, the mother of a suicide bomber, according to a PMW translation:

"What comes to mind as I listen to comrade (lit. sister) Um Nidal is the verse Paradise is under the feet of the mothers, " he said. " Praise is due to this woman, and to every Palestinian mother, and to every Palestinian female resistance fighter and Jihad fighter on this land."

6) Time to End Fitzgerald's Folly
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you're Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing that you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory, and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten.

Scooter Libby has just been convicted for four felonies that could theoretically give him 25 years in jail for ... what? Misstating when he first heard a certain piece of information, namely the identity of Joe Wilson's wife.

Think about that. Can you remember when was the first time you heard the name Joe Wilson or Valerie Plame? OK, so it is not a preoccupation of yours. But it was a preoccupation of many Washington journalists and government officials called to testify at the Libby trial, and their memories were all over the lot. Former presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer testified under oath that he had not told Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Mrs. Wilson. Pincus testified under oath that Fleischer definitely had.
yes no
yes no
yes no

Obviously, one is not telling the truth. But there is no reason to believe that either one is deliberately lying. Pincus and Fleischer are as fallible as any of us. They spend their days receiving and giving information. They can't possibly be expected to remember not only every piece, but precisely when they received every piece.

Should Scooter Libby? He was famously multitasking a large number of national security and domestic issues, receiving hundreds of pieces of information every day from dozens of sources. Yet special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald chose to make Libby's misstatements about the timing of the receipt of one piece of information -- Mrs. Wilson's identity -- the great white whale of his multimillion-dollar prosecutorial juggernaut.

Why? Because on his essential charge as special prosecutor -- find and punish who had leaked Valerie Plame's name -- he had nothing. No conspiracy, no felony, no crime, not even the claim that she was a covert agent covered by the nondisclosure law. Fitzgerald knew the leaker from the very beginning. It was not Libby, but Richard Armitage. He also knew that the "leak'' by the State Department's No. 2 official -- a fierce bureaucratic opponent of the White House and especially the vice president's office -- was an innocent offhand disclosure made to explain how the CIA had improbably chosen Wilson for a WMD mission. (He was recommended by his CIA wife.)

Everyone agrees that Fitzgerald's perjury case against Libby hung on the testimony of NBC's Tim Russert. Libby said that he heard about Plame from Russert. Russert said he had never discussed it. The jury members who have spoken said they believed Russert.

And why should they not? Russert is a perfectly honest man who would not lie. He was undoubtedly giving his best recollection.

But he is not the pope. Given that so many journalists and administration figures were shown to have extremely fallible memories, is it possible that Russert's memory could have been faulty?

I have no idea. But we do know that Russert once denied calling up a Buffalo News reporter to complain about a story. Russert later apologized for the error when he was shown the evidence of a call he had genuinely and completely forgotten.

There is a second instance of Russert innocently misremembering. He stated under oath that he did not know that one may not be accompanied by a lawyer to a grand jury hearing. This fact, in and of itself, is irrelevant to the case, except that, as former prosecutor Victoria Toensing points out, the defense had tapes showing Russert saying on television three times that lawyers are barred from grand jury proceedings.

This demonstration of Russert's fallibility was never shown to the jury. The judge did not allow it. He was upset with the defense because it would not put Libby on the stand -- his perfect Fifth Amendment right -- after hinting in the opening statement that it might. He therefore denied the defense a straightforward demonstration of the fallibility of the witness whose testimony was most decisive.

Toensing thinks this might be the basis for overturning the verdict upon appeal. I hope so. This is a case that never should have been brought, originating in the scandal that never was, in search of a crime -- violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- that even the prosecutor never alleged. That's the basis for a presidential pardon. It should have been granted long before this egregious case came to trial. It should be granted now without any further delay.