Day 1- Haystacks In A Needle...

Jury selection begins

in trial of the century

WASHINGTON - Two potential jurors who expressed negative views of Bush administration officials were dismissed on the opening day of the perjury trial of former White House aide "Scooter" Libby.

The start of jury selection in the CIA leak case provided a potentially crucial victory for I. Lewis Libby's defense lawyers. They were allowed to ask potential jurors in detail about their opinions of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney, a group of high-profile reporters and whether the administration had lied to push the country into war with Iraq.

The defense faces a key challenge in picking a jury for this highly political case in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 9-to-1. Cheney is expected to be a defense witness.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald objected repeatedly, but to no avail, that Libby's lawyers were going beyond the more general opinion questions that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton asked the entire jury pool when the proceedings began Tuesday morning.

Fitzgerald complained that defense attorneys Theodore Wells and William Jeffress were turning jury selection into "an open-ended Rorschach (ink-blot) test into how you feel about the Bush administration, Vice President Cheney" the Iraq war and various reporters. "They're trying the case" in jury selection, he argued.

But Walton ruled the defense lawyers have a right to know if "somebody has a very negative attitude to the Bush administration." <more>

I never complain - I assert.

Slim Pickings Picking Scooter's Peers

Scooter Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice case started today, but it was Dick Cheney and Tim Russert who were really on trial. Both men will be witnesses in the trial that stems from a federal investigation into Bush aides' leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame in 2003. Cheney, who was on Fox News Sunday this week attesting to Libby's honesty, will testify in support of his former chief of staff. Whereas Russert will testify for the prosecution, which will attempt to prove that the newsman's recollections are more accurate than Libby's about when and how Libby disclosed Plame's identity.

During jury selection, the judge and defense counsel tried to ferret out whether the vice president's unpopularity would cause those weighing the case to discount his testimony, or whether the star power of the Meet the Press host might lead jurors to believe anything he said. (Prosecutors, who benefit from these preconceptions, were not so worked up about probing them.)

Given these lines of inquiry, it became pretty clear who was going to get out of jury duty. Pay attention to the world around you, and it was pretty likely you were going to get bounced. <more>

Time to watch American Idol - Day 1!