However, (and let me make a caveat up front, it is always of limited value to opine when one has the limited sencond hand info I have), one thing that appears to be missing from the prosecution case based on the accounts I have read is  ther impression that this was about something hugley important and that the stakes were high for Libby.

  Maybe it simply got glossed over in the reporting but nowhere do I get the sense that the prosecution ever made the case that at the very least political fortunes and personal careers hung in the balance and this is all very important.

  If that is true and the jury does not perceive this as being a matter of vital importance, an acquittal becomes much more likely.

 The prosecutions's case, as I received it indirectly, seemed to trivialize the whole affair as much as one would have expected the defense to do. It all just sounded like a bunch of sheltered and self-important people gossipping and quibbling in a manner no different than the crap that takes place in every office (or junior high) in the country.

  I have no prediction but I was very surprised that the effort to exalt the importance of what the investigation was really about was made and why lying during it meant something.

Ms. Wheeler, a business consultant from Michigan who writes under the nom-de-blog "emptywheel,"