The Progress of the Surge

Embedded blogger and Special Forces veteran Michael Yon blogs on the progress of the surge in Iraq. Bottom line: It's going pretty well. Which raises a question: Why didn't we do this sooner? Yon, by the way, is reader-supported; you can contribute here. And here is another upbeat report from Mohammed and Omar Fadhil of iraqthemodel.com.

Latin America

Jorge Castañeda, Mexico's foreign minister in 2000–03 and a scholar, presents an illuminating overview of the region to which George W. Bush is making a major tour over the next several days. He argues that Bush and congressional Democrats should push through a comprehensive immigration bill and that Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderón, should lead a confrontation with Venezuela's dictator, Hugo Chávez.

The Libby Verdict

I consider the prosecution of "Scooter" Libby a travesty of justice and the jury's verdict a tragedy, and I intend to write more about it. There's a huge contrast between the treatment of Libby, who now faces up to 25 years in jail, and that of Sandy Berger, who was allowed to plead guilty, with no jail time, to stealing documents from the National Archives. But in the meantime, let me share some worthy commentary. The Washington Post editorializes smartly and makes some important points.

First:

"The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity–and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert."

Second:

"It would have been sensible for Mr. Fitzgerald to end his investigation after learning about Mr. Armitage."

Which is to say, right at the beginning of his investigation. There was no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which was the issue at hand. There was, thus, no warrant for requiring journalists to testify about sources, much less for jailing Judith Miller for 85 days. And there was no warrant for eliciting testimony from administration officials like Libby.

Third, the Post exposes Joseph Wilson for what he is: a liar and, in their words, "a blowhard":

"A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false–and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife."

The Wall Street Journal's editorial goes further and calls for an immediate pardon of Libby. It characterizes the gist of the offense:

" ... he has been convicted of telling the truth about Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame to some reporters but then not owning up to it.
Mr. Bush will no doubt be advised to wait for the outcome of an appeal and the end of his Administration to pardon Mr. Libby. We believe he bears some personal responsibility for this conviction, especially for not policing the disputes and insubordination in his Administration that made this travesty possible. The time for a pardon is now."

I agree. So does an outraged Clarice Feldman writing in the American Thinker blog.