at the end of the day...

At the end of the day when this nightmare that has come to be called "Leak-gate" unravels, we will look, with thanks, to the efforts of another Fitzgerald, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who has shown us where the buck stops, who Scooter Libby lied to protect, and how not merely the intelligence surrounding the war, but the intelligence about the intelligence surrounding the war got spun out of control. Go figure, he almost fooled me, this prosecutor, on one day in particular--the day that New York Times reporter Judith Miller was led away in handcuffs for contempt of court. He almost had me believing he was one of those "bad people," to borrow Mr. Rumsfeld's phrase, not a terrorist, but a mobster hiding behind the badge of "patriot."

It might make some who are fond of boxes a trifle uncomfortable to think that a man like Fitzgerald would not be intimidated by anyone or anything to get at the truth, even if it meant what he found, at the end of the day, would completely transform everything he knew, and that he believed to be true; even if it meant that the pledge of allegiance might never sound the same to him again. Somehow, one senses that the truth means more to Mr. Fitzgerald than his comfort zone, and one can only say amen for that.

It is because of his allegations that President Bush authorized Scooter Libby to divulge classified intelligence out of anger at former Iraqi ambassador Joseph Wilson for disclosing this administration's covert deliberate and premeditated manufacturing of evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq that we now know where Mr. Fitzgerald was going, and why his investigation lasted more than two years. Stop what you're doing, and think about this for a minute. A federal prosecutor who hauled in members of the press to name their sources to find out who outed an undercover CIA operative discovered, and revealed, that the White House was behind the outing. If this isn't stunning to you, rest assured, it will be to your grandchildren.

At the end of the day, as this special prosecutor's actions have shown, an act of heroism crosses party lines, and seldom comes from an expected source. We can only hope to see more courage, and less cowardice in the days ahead. This country deserves, and must demand, nothing less.