But before we get too deep in the mud of this new
fight, we should pay a parting tribute to the veterans
of the last one. Only now, after the special
prosecutor has revealed how little criminal material
they had to work with, can we fully appreciate their
achievements. The envelopes, please:

Best dramatic performance before a grand jury Scooter
Libby, for his soliloquy describing his conversation
with Tim Russert in July 2003.

By this time, according to the indictment, Libby had
discussed with at least seven different people the
fact that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie, worked for
the C.I.A. Russert testified that her name didn’t come
up, but Libby testified that Russert brought it up —
and that it was news to him:

”And then he [Russert] said, did you know that this
— excuse me, did you know that Ambassador Wilson’s
wife works at the C.I.A.? And I was a little taken
aback by that. I remember being taken aback.”

Best nickname Judith Miller, for calling herself Miss
Run Amok.

Worst nickname I. Lewis Libby’s father, for dubbing
him Scooter. Although this may seem an obvious choice,
there was strong dissent on our panel from judges who
argued that Libby’s father, presciently realizing that
his son might need to be tough enough to survive in
prison, was following the ”Boy Named Sue” theory of
child development.

Murkiest crimes Perjury and obstruction of justice. To
the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, they’re
serious crimes that are prosecuted ”all the time,”
but that’s not how Washington veterans view them. It
all depends on who’s accused of the crimes — Bill
Clinton or Scooter Libby — and whether he’s in your
party.

To legal scholars, these crimes are like tax evasion:
deplorable and widespread but unlikely to be punished,
especially when the perpetrators are not celebrities
or public officials. ”Perjury is extremely common,”
said Sam Gross, a professor of law at the University
of Michigan. ”Perjury prosecutions are incredibly
uncommon.”

‘Our Man in Havana’ prize Joseph Wilson, for being
even more persistent than the White House in hyping
prewar intelligence. While administration officials
now admit their pre-war ignorance, on Sunday Wilson
sounded as confident as ever on NBC’s ”Dateline”
when he was asked whether his 2002 trip to Niger had
proved that no uranium from that nation had been sold
to Iraq.

”Absolutely,” he replied. ”After eight days in
Niger, I determined that it did not happen and could
not have happened without a lot of people knowing, and
there was absolutely no evidence that such a
transaction had taken place or even had been
contemplated.”

How could anyone have known that so definitively after
spending a few days in a country and sipping tea with
dignitaries? Why would anyone expect officials in
Niger to suddenly reveal their secrets to a visiting
U.S. ambassador?

What Wilson actually found was very little, according
to a bipartisan Senate committee that investigated.
The committee said that most of the analysts who heard
Wilson’s oral report in 2002 concluded that the scant
evidence he brought back, if anything, bolstered the
theory that Iraq had been seeking uranium.

Austin Powers international person of mystery award
Valerie Wilson. Could a former U.S. ambassador’s wife,
working at C.I.A. headquarters, really be a deep-cover
spy? Then why did she represent the C.I.A. in meetings
with other agencies, and why, after her name was
printed, did she further out herself by posing for
Vanity Fair?

Most thoughtful media analysts The lawyers who wrote
the amicus curiae brief for three dozen media
organizations opposed to the special prosecutor’s
subpoenas of reporters.

The brief, filed seven months ago, said there was
”serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been
committed” in revealing Valerie Wilson’s status.
Arguing that the C.I.A. had been ”cavalier” about
protecting her identity and had been criticized for
”ineptitude” in sending her husband to Niger, the
brief suggested that ”the C.I.A. may have initiated
this investigation out of embarrassment over
revelations of its own shortcomings.”