What Scooter Libby's trial exposed

Besides the perjury was the incestuous relationship of the press and Capitol Hill. As Digby explains:

This isn't brain surgery. A reporter's privilege should not be used to help powerful people in government lie to the public about what it's doing or punish its enemies for speaking out against it. It exists to protect people who are risking their livlihoods by speaking out against those same powerful people. This is not hard for rational people to understand and yet in Washington they are so confused by their relationships with the powerful that they seem to be speaking in tongues on this issue.

The political press is not a monolith. There are incredible reporters like Priest who have done extraordinary work under very difficult circumstances. We can't do without them. But the insider culture of Washington that McEnroe describes in his piece above is a decadent and insular little circle of celebrity and power that has affirmatively harmed this country. The Libby trial opened up that fetid boil and did this country a favor. I'm not surprised that they are squealing as loudly as they can --- or that the rightwing freakshow is behaving as if they were born yesterday. After all, they all know they are compromised. They just didn't think we did.