Blaming Libby For The Plame Leaks Is Like Blaming Lyndie England For Abu Gharib

I can't say I am disappointed that a jury has just found Lewis Libby guilty.

But given the comment of at least one juror that it would have been interesting if Cheney or even Bush had been in that courtroom, I can't help but think that here's just another example of a fall guy taking the blame.

Blame for a campaign outing a CIA agent that surely came from Cheney in response to the agent's husband unmasking the Nigerian yellow cake lie that led us into war in Iraq.

It's usually the functionaries that get the real punishment. How much you bet that nurses and orderlies will be fired as a result of Walter Reed investigations now warming up. They won't be able to get new jobs, but the mothballed Secretary of the Army- who has just been sacked as a result of the scandal''s initial revelations-will probably wind up as a highly paid international security consultant or something like that.

Another example, informed by this post's title: Lyndie England and her merry band of Abu Gahrib torturers being court-martialed when it could have very well been that the environment for this type of prisoner treatment was hinted at by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. You know, him saying in a cabinet meeting that the way to break down a Muslim man and get him to give you information about terrorists is to humiliate him.

Lesson learned? More often than not, the biggest guys, the architects of evil, escape meaningful punishment by offering up sacrificial lambs.