After three years of investigation, Carl Rove will not be indicted for leaking Valerie Plame’s CIA status to the press (a more leftist article can be found at the LA Times). I predicted this a little less than a year ago: the laws are defined too narrowly to really be applicable to such cases, for the most part. This also brings the hopeful trend of indictments to a close.
It’s strange—the Republicans are celebrating because one of their own didn’t land in jail (I personally don’t think this should be cause for a celebration). The Democrats are making a lot of noise because even though Rove is not going to be charged, such an action was considered, and this somehow makes him disreputable (which is the opposite of the way the legal system is supposed to work, what with the presumption of innocence and all). The way I see it, I don’t think anyone has a good cause for making a big deal of any of this. and yet I’d be quite disappointed if this story, like so many other denouements, just went quietly into the night without anyone noticing. Ideally, I’d like the reaction to such news to be everyone going “huh,” and then returning to whatever they were doing, but this will never happen for any story of which I catch wind (I hear about them precisely because people make such a big fuss). I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it’s interesting to contrast my reaction and the rest of the country’s.