No, the Plame affair isn’t over

Both Glenn Reynolds and Tim Noah seem to think that Joseph Wilson’s mania for self-promotion has something to do with the issue of the criminal liability of those who betrayed his wife’s secret status. Nothing about the Plame scandal depends on believing Joseph Wilson or trusting his motives. The story isn’t about him, much as he and his enemies in the White House would like it to be. It’s not about her, either. It’s about two “top White House officials” who blew an undercover agent’s identity for political purposes, and who ought to be going to jail for it, and about the President of the United States, who has to this date not asked the people who work for him to come forward and say whether they were, or were not, responsible.

I’m still hoping (and betting) that the folks at the FBI and Main Justice handling this affair don’t live in the celebrity-dominated culture where everything is personal, but rather in the older, and to some people less interesting, world in which facts, laws, and even principles still matter.

Thanks to Matt Yglesias for the pointer.