As I sit and wait for a verdict, I wonder about the lawyers involved in the Libby Case.

Six years ago, my father-in-law, a retired U.S. Treasury agent, who had lost his first wife to cancer, remarried. His loving and lovely bride had worked with him as a Treasury agent for years and had comforted him as he mourned the loss of his first wife. The friendship blossomed into a romance and my wife, her brother and all of us rejoiced at their marriage. Today, Fiona, my youngest daughter can think of nothing she would love in the world more than us buying the house down the street from her papa and nana.

My knowledge of Federal Law Enforcement agents and the U.S. Attorneys they worked with was limited to what I saw in the media; Ephraim Zimblast, Jr., Perry Mason. Yet sitting on my in-laws patio, a whole different perspective opened up to me. I heard stories of my father-in-law and his family having dinner at local Italian restaurants at the same time that an organized crime member and his immediate family were having dinner a few tables away. Everyone watched one another and knew who was watching whom.

There would be discussions at the picnic table about this U.S. Attorney or that Asst. Attorney; which attorneys did a good job, which ones were hard to work with. I came to appreciate the agents and the attorneys as more than media caricatures. They became really people with real lives.

This was particularly driven home to me during the wedding. It turns out that a sting was going down the day of the wedding and the members of the U.S. Attorney’s office and all the criminal defense lawyers at the wedding were trying to get information from the Agents who were busily drinking Sambuca with my brother-in-law what the details were.

All of this comes to mind as I read the latest of the media caricatures of the players in the Libby case. The Washington Post writes A Nonpartisan Reputation at Stake. Media Matters points out that the Washington Post ”left out that he's a Bush appointee”.

On NewsTrust, I found another Washington Post article, ”Justice Department Fires 8th U.S. Attorney”. The article talks about political motivations for the firings and my mind wanders back to discussions on the patio about U.S. Attorneys.

All of this seems to leave out that Patrick Fitzgerald, Ted Wells, and Reggie Walton, various fired U.S. Attorneys have probably been to a christening, wedding or funeral of some federal agent and sat around listening to stories told by agents enjoying their sambuca. When all is said and done, there will be the verdict. There may be appeals, new trials, but there will also be new christenings, weddings and funerals. The U.S. form of government will survive, and most likely, like Jesus and Pilate in Anatole France's "The Procurator of Judea," many of the players will go about their daily lives and be forgotten.