the valkyrie's vigil

Back in June, notoriously pudding-headed NRO editor Rich Lowry did a blazingly moronic piece on NPR's "All Things Considered" where he declared that the Fitzgerald grand jury's non-indictment of Karl Rove meant that the Plame leak was not a crime and that all us liberals were morons for caring.  Yeah, I know.  It's difficult to listen to, but for pure "Ah-hah, sucks to you, Lowry!" value, it can't be beat.  It occasioned an angry letter to NPR from me and a plea to be allowed to rebut, but, of course, they turned me down.

In the Antarctic, when scientists want to study the air, water, and weather of ancient times, they drill down into the ice and take a core sample, which provides them with a perfect cross-section of each epoch.  The Libby case is like an ice core sample of the Bush Administration's incestuous, manipulative, and deeply disingenuous relationship to the media and how they played the press like a concert violin in the run up to the catastrophic set of errors that is the War in Iraq.

We may or may not ever see Karl Rove in leg-irons and an orange jumpsuit, although that would be a delightful cherry on the cake, but what we are learning through testimony about the catty, back-stabbing world inhabited by our major media pundits is not only highly entertaining, but it should serve as a valuable lesson to reporters, writers, and editors who may ever be tempted to let their desire for access cloud their judgement in the future.

There's more to it, though.  This case has a certain hold on the public imagination that has more to do with the power of the narrative and the characters involved.  In some ways, it reminds me of a massive multiple-night Wagner opera cycle.  There's a Great War, passion, intrigue, dastardly villains, and a few heroes.

In fact, if there are any composers in the audience tonight, let me be the first to volunteer to write the libretto.  It'll be great.  We'll find some ponderous, ominous baritone to sing the role of Dick Cheney and Renée Fleming will sing the part of Valkyrie Plame.  And in the end, after the great battle, they'll all fly off to Valhalliburton*.

(*That rather marvellous play on words came to us courtesy of reader punaise.)