An article in today's New York Times says that Republicans are already discussing how to spin possible indictments in the Valerie Plame affair later this week. The following excerpt is particularly telling:

"But allies of the White House have quietly been circulating talking points in recent days among Republicans sympathetic to the administration, seeking to help them make the case that bringing charges like perjury mean the prosecutor does not have a strong case, one Republican with close ties to the White House said Sunday. Other people sympathetic to Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have said that indicting them would amount to criminalizing politics and that Mr. Fitzgerald did not understand how Washington works"

I was one of those who opposed the so-called "Names of Agents" bill when it was passed in 1982, on the grounds that it prevented exposure of CIA misdeeds abroad--which at that time at least were manifest. However, if outing CIA agents to get back at their husbands who are challenging Bush administration justifications for a war are just "politics," what does this say about the regard that the people who are playing politics have for their country? This is an extraordinary admission that they have none at all.