yet another reason why we need congressional oversight...

In a Salon article about Rove, Walter Shapiro makes an interesting point:

"Hubris" also draws an important distinction between Libby's indictment by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for perjury and Rove's clean-slate escape, despite a faulty memory and five trips before the grand jury. "Whatever his suspicions about Rove's account," Isikoff and Corn write, "Fitzgerald was a professional who would not indict a suspect unless he could establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And perjury is notoriously difficult to prove ... Fitzgerald didn't have a parade of witnesses contradicting the White House aide's account -- as he did with Libby."

("Hubris" is Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book about the Plame affair.)

Had one or both houses of Congress been in Dem control this year, the investigation of Rove would have gone beyond the relatively quiet (and secretive) world of a federal prosecutor looking for a conviction and into the slime pit that is congressional hearings. Congresscritters could have summoned the entire cast of characters before committees, like D'Amato did to the Clintons and their cohorts during the Whitewater investigations.

There's always the risk that a congressional committee might big-foot a DoJ investigation, as in the Iran-Contra fiasco, where convicted felons North and Poindexter were not forced to face justice, but Rove's off the hook anyway.

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