Marcy Wheeler is one of the very best of the researchers investigating the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA officer.  Her work has been consistently on the mark and her conclusions almost always confirmed as facts dribble out.  Hers will be the definitive study of what happened and why. 

If it  hadn’t been for the groundbreaking work of the blogosphere, and Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) in particular, the CIA Leak Investigation probably would have turned into another Whitewater — an incomprehensible mess of spin put forward by the Administration and published on the front page of the Washington Post like it actually made sense. Thanks to the tireless work of those who read carefully and publicly held journalists accountable for their work, the abililty of the Administration to do  that was sorely hampered. 

Now the table is being set for a Libby pardon, helpfully abetted by the New York Times, the Washington Post and Bill Kristol among others. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who has worked so tirelessly and efficiently on this case, is being smeared by those who either don’t understand what has happened to date or are willfully ignorant of history.

It is for this reason that we are going to be publishing our first book through FDL Books, in order to have Marcy’s work seen by a larger audience.  We hope to publish it in much the same fashion as Glenn Greenwald’s How Would a Patriot Act, in conjunction with Jennifer Nix who did such a great job on that effort. Glenn’s book which was a true internet phenomenon, and we hope we can have a similar impact by publishing this book in conjunction with the Libby trial in February of next year. 

If George Bush wants to pardon Scooter Libby, it is important that he know that there will be a price to be paid for doing so, and that price increases as the truth spreads.  We need 650 readers to give $100 each in order to help us to make that happen. That’s less than 1% of the average readership of this blog on any given weekday.  This is an important story both for the blogosphere and the country to get right, and we need your help to do that.