Ralph Kramden

Here's Charles, vamping on Karl Rove.

But hey, is it The Prospect that makes Charles unavailable on Alterman any more? Say it's not so!

It's a tough thing to admit you were wrong. It's easier, I guess, when you're dealing with matters of fact - if the facts show you're wrong, then you're wrong. In matters of opinion, though, changing your mind can be seen as a weakness, especially if you are an opinion leader.

In my view, it shows courage and confidence and strength of character. In yiddish, this is known as "menschlichkeit".

Which brings me to Bob Kuttner of The American Prospect.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Kuttner penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe "Politics Taints Probe of CIA Leak", in which he speculated that Fitzgerald might be politically motivated in the way he's conducting the Plame leak inquiry. I found this column to be uncharitable and unfair to Fitzgerald, and I wrote Mr. Kuttner to tell him so. To my surprise (after all, who am I?), Mr. Kuttner responded to my email! We swapped a couple of messages, and a day or two later, he wrote this article in the online Prospect, allowing how he could have been mistaken. And later, in the same space as his original article, he wrote this column, explicitly expressing his "second thoughts".

Now, I'm not claiming I had anything to do with Mr. Kuttner's change of heart - I'm sure he had quite a bit of comment about that first column. But Mr. Kuttner's very public change of mind shows his courage and thoughtfulness.

Bob Kuttner is a mensch.

Congressman Roy Blunt says on Face the Nation that Plame might not have been under cover. And the host Bob Schieffer just sits there!

Once again, Plame must have been under cover. Otherwise Fitzgerald's investigation would not have gotten past square one.

(And this idea that Rove is owed "an apology"? Puh-lease!)

Oh, and Schumer rocks! A fount of plain good sense. (I can barely watch Mehlman.)

The Plame case continues apace, and commentary flows from the right and the left of the commentariat. But there's plenty of illogic to go around. There's little info available from Fitzgerald - leaks from his office have been few and far between. But let's assume Fitzgerald is a competant prosecutor, and analyze what logically flows from that assumption.

Right now, a couple of silly story lines are making the rounds -

A popular line from the right, echoed in much of the mainstream media, is that no crime has been committed, since Plame was not a protected secret operative. This makes no sense at all. Early in the investigation, Fitzgerald interviewed officials of the CIA. The first order of business of a competant prosecutor would be to determine whether or not Plame's identity was indeed legally protected. If not, Fitzgerald's investigation would have been done months ago. He's not done. Therefore, Plame's identity was indeed protected, and knowingly revealing it would indeed constitute a crime.

From the left, there's the growing speculation that Judy Miller might be guilty of more than just contempt. Billmon writes: "if Judy revealed Plame's status as a NOC to anyone not legally authorized to know it, she deserves a nice long stretch in a federal pen for espionage". Well, yes, BUT - if Miller was guilty of such a crime, she wouldn't be in jail right now for contempt. She would have a clear 5th amendment right not to testify.

I hope Fitzgerald wraps up his investigation and the grand jury hands down indictments where indicated. Until then, speculate away, but let's clear up the thinking out there, shall we?