SNIP
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>For the record I personally have very little doubt Libby was guilty of exactly what they charged him with. I just don't care if he goes to jail for it. I think the insistence that somebody from the Bush administration actually go to jail is scalp hunting - a common Washington sport but one in which I don't really have a team to cheer for <s>

While (from way up here) I hadn't sensed any deep 'need' on anybody's part for someone from the current administration to go to jail, there sure was a huge effort to discredit President Clinton by just about any means possible.

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>Of course, I don't see jail as a very appropriate place for anyone not convicted of behavior that risks the safety of others ( and no, I don't think 'outing' Plame put her in any danger whatsoever, where I do think a lot of FIA requests for stuff that reveals sources and methods does in fact do that as does a lot of press activity under the "public's right to know")

I doubt that the "Freedom of Information Act" has caused much in the way of state secrets to be revealed. Any examples of actual documents that I've seen are usually over 90% blacked out. I usually find myself asking just what "information" is really free for public review.
People can request whatever they want, I suppose, but they don't seem to get much of what they want.

"News" today just ain't what it used to be.
Quarterly profit/loss statements have caused massive cuts in both bureaux (whole entities gone) and staff generally. Reporting staff is not at all immune.
Combine this with more corporate ownership (with more concentration too) and the fact that corporations are careful to cover for each other and what now passes as "news" is but a pale imitation of what used to be news.
Then there are the advertisements that are designed to slant public opinion, often from sources (the preceding was paid for by Xxxxxxxx) with names that directly contradict their actual objectives.

Maybe you have your own 'reliable' sources for the news you choose to believe. That's fine and dandy, but it does absolutey nothing for the huge majority who continue to rely on the long-established sources for their news. What is being fed to us through the 'time-tested' channels is hardly meaningful, omits tons of events (especially of overseas things), never comprehensive and only ever accidentally involves "investigative reporting" spanning more than a few days.

The sole objective of any corporate media outlet today is maximized profit. When it was bought by ??? the Los Angeles Times had a steady year-to-year profit of 20%. The buyers saw big potential for cost savings and started doing so. 4 years later the paper is but a shadow of its former self and the new ownership has pressed to make it a strictly local paper to cut even more. They see no problem in suggesting that their readers should buy 2-3 newspapers daily - one for national/world news, one for financial news and the L.A. Times for local news. Imagine!!!

As regards jailing only people who 'risk the safety of others'... does that mean that fraudsters and personal use drug possessors and identity thieves and fences and illegal immigrants and a myriad of other offences should be dealt with by fines only?