If there had never been a Valerie Plame, would there have been the level of criminal politics being investigated by Patrick Fitzgerald? It's like the question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
If there had been WMDs, even traces, would we be asking ourselves whether criminals are running the U.S.? Or would all political perniciousness have stayed underground and undetected, part of the way of doing things when power is possessed by the privileged limited on a mission? For that matter, if there was no such animal as Fitzgerald, "a prosecutor's prosecutor," largely considered a moral man with no party affiliation committed to justice, where would we be then?
If the indictments package sticks or falls apart in the months to come because of efforts to disparage Fitzgerald or some likely dissembling, there's a larger picture here. We came very close to missing how bad the lies were and still are, no small credit going to a press cadre of the courted and cowed and a new Sesame Street Democratic strategy of making friends with everyone.
Politics has always had a criminal element awaiting a criminal. The near miss on this one is reason enough not to treat what's been termed the "criminalization of politics" as something entirely new, specific to the Valerie Plame leak and the WMD lie, or, worse, likely to go away. That would be to forget how far away the next presidential election is and to trust that the right people are finally and unrelentingly on the case.
Additional comment: Note Carl Bernstein's (just in) concern too with the press and political establishment almost missing what has been going on at the White House. Bernstein referred to actions of Libby, et. al "finally shedding light on questions that long ago should have been examined by the press and the political establishment...."
P.S. Your comments and questions on this blog and the last are thought-provoking, so thought I'd try responding to some of the ones below briefly here. Also to some from the last blog as it drew the same kind of thinking. Thanks. It's hard for us professor types, not to respond to interesting comments. So I'll give it a go.