Go On Home To Your Kids, MSM...

it's almost high noon.

A Nonpartisan Reputation at Stake
For Prosecutor, Libby Verdict May Mean Vindication or Political Taint

When the jury in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's perjury trial returns with its verdict, its decision also will intensify the debate over whether Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald should have brought the case in the first place.

For Fitzgerald, who has led the CIA leak investigation for more than three years, an acquittal for Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff would be a blow to a reputation as a nonpartisan prosecutor with a record of high-profile successes. Some say it would vindicate critics who think Fitzgerald went too far by charging Libby with perjury when no one was indicted for the original offense investigated, the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name.

"The stakes are enormously high," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor and now a defense lawyer. If Fitzgerald loses this case, Mintz said, "some will say he lost his way in his search for truth, just another case of a prosecutor who sets off and thinks they can't come back unless they have a prosecution, no matter how trivial."

But several lawyers monitoring the trial as spectators say Fitzgerald has presented a compelling case that the government had a duty to bring. <more>

High Noon - "People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it. Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care."

"You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you're honest you're poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star."

"I've got to, that's the whole thing."

Reporters Who Work on Fox News Are Jeopardizing Their Careers