The Libby trial exposes some serious flaws in the American Justice system, which I think is broken and needs major repair. From Tom Maguire's blog, here is a quote attributed to Susan Estrich, not someone I agree with most of the time, but I completely agree with this:

SUSAN ESTRICH:
The only problem here is that there was no underlying crime. The answer to the question Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was initially appointed to investigate — had anyone violated the law in disclosing Ms. Plame's name in their effort to discredit her husband's criticism of the administration's war policy — was no. No one violated what we used to call the "Agents Law." Dick Armitage, the guy who admits he gave out her name in the first place, isn't facing time; nor are Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or any of the reporters or news organizations who didn't hesitate to disclose her identity.

Libby is in trouble not for what he did, but because he wasn't as careful as the others during his interviews and grand jury testimony.
If he'd just said, "I don't recall" a hundred times, or even invoked the Fifth (whether properly or not, following the Monica Goodling approach), he wouldn't be bankrupt, ruined, disgraced and heading to prison.

There is something troubling about prosecutors using perjury and obstruction of justice to turn into criminals people who haven't committed any other crime. Instead of using the grand jury as a tool for investigating other criminal activity, it becomes the forum for creating criminal conduct. The role of the FBI and federal prosecutors becomes one of creating criminals instead of catching them. Technically, I know, it's not entrapment, but it's still different than the usual business of tracking down those who have violated the law and punishing them for their bad acts. The investigation doesn't solve the crime; it creates it.

MY THOUGHTS:
To me the Libby case was an example of political persecution. The whole thing started as a political dirty trick by the Democrats that originally didn't work well. It started with Joe Wilson's lies, but when the Administration responded there was suddenly an opportunity that opened up as Valerie Plame's role in the dirty trick was exposed. Senator Schumer demanded an investigation, and got his buddy James Comey to, probably illegally, name a special prosecutor. In Washington, DC with a black judge and a mostly black jury, you can get a conviction of a Republican for almost anything. In fairness to the jury, thanks to the judge, they didn't know as much about the facts of the case as the rest of us who followed it. One curious thing in the trial was that Fitzgerald sought and got extra punishment for Libby because the case was about revealing an agent's name, even though there was never any evidence that Libby was the person who actually revealed her name, and in fact it was known that he was not the one. (What is known is that Comey and Fitzgerald don't like Libby from past interactions.)

One unfortunate outcome of this is that we now know that if a Federal Agent comes to talk to you, it is wise to suddenly develop a bad memory. Hillary Clinton couldn't remember anything when she was questioned about her various scandals; that is a good lesson for all of us.