Wayback Machine Should Hit Joe Wilson Hard

It wasn't long ago when Joe Wilson said he would sue Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and the Tooth Fairy in order to get to the bottom of L'affair Plame.

So, when faced with the opportunity to confront the very folks that he claims outed his wife, Joe Wilson is trying to fight a subpoena to testify in the Lewis 'Scooter' Libby case.

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson asked a federal judge Wednesday not to force him to testify in the CIA leak case and accused former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of trying to harass him on the witness stand.

Libby, who faces perjury and obstruction charges, subpoenaed Wilson as a defense witness this month. Libby's attorney, William Jeffress, said in court Tuesday that was a precautionary move and he did not expect to put Wilson on the stand.

Libby is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Wilson's wife, outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame and Wilson have sued Libby and other Bush administration officials, accusing them of plotting to leak Plame's identity as retribution for Wilson's criticism of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Mr. Libby should not be permitted to compel Mr. Wilson's testimony at trial either for the purpose of harassing Mr. Wilson or to gain an advantage in the civil case," Wilson's attorneys wrote.

While Wilson and Plame are at the center of the CIA leak scandal, Wilson is a minor figure in Libby's perjury trial. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has sought to keep much of the back story of the leak out of the case.

Walton might try to keep much of the back story out of the case, but the problem is that without that backstory, there was no case to begin with as the Patrick Fitzgerald searched for nearly two years without a single indictment for the actual leak.

There was no Fitzmas. No one was indicted for violating federal law. Richard Armitage was fingered as the person who first mentioned Plame's name to a media source, and no charges were filed against him.

Instead, we get a dog and pony show to somehow justify Fitzgerald's investigations. For his part, Libby has every right to bring in witnesses to testify to the criminal acts asserted and/or factual circumstances that would show that there was no criminal act. Wilson knows that he's fighting a lost cause on his own civil suit, and doesn't want to have to run the gauntlet twice - perhaps irreparably damaging his civil case before he can get to trial.

Others picking up the story: California Conservative, Bullwinkle Blog, Joe's Dartblog, and Let Freedom Ring.