But the managers of the fund-raising effort on behalf of Mr. Libby say they have already reached the $2 million mark and expect to increase the pace when they start a fund-raising Web site. "It's a particularly excellent start," said Mel Sembler, the chairman of the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald dropped a mini-bombshell Friday afternoon while he was explaining his indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby to the press. It turns out that the central premise of his investigation - that Valerie Plame Wilson enjoyed protected "covert" status at the CIA may not be true. "Let me say two things," Fitzgerald told reporters. "I am not speaking [in this indictment] to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert . . . And we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly or intentionally outed a covert agent." Fitzgerald did insist that Mrs. Wilson's "association with the CIA was classified," which would make leaking her occupation a crime. But he declined to bring any charges to that effect, casting even more doubt on the claim that her CIA job was a closely guarded secret.

One charge of purjury was a result of love in its simplest form

Anyone want to compare Libby's alledged actions to the outing of a very important international terrorist spying program?

The fund is managed by a lifetime Republican operative, Barbara Comstock and chaired by Mel Sembler, Ambassador to Italy when the whole Niger caper was planned. In addition, the fund includes such notable contributors as Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Bernard Lewis, and James Woolsey. These folks are not just trying to bail out (literally) a good friend. They're trying to prevent their entire Neocon project from being severely damaged by the trial.