If Cheney takes the stand, he is going to have to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.

That will play well in Peoria.

That said, my view is that DC is such a in-bred high-school-like gossip-center that any water-cooler chitchat about minor players like the Wilsons was purely tangential and quickly pushed aside in most people's minds by whateever the latest and much juicier and gossip about much more interesting and powerful people was.

Walton Have you ever had memory losses like the memory loss you said you had with Libby?

Memory doesn't have to be perfect.  But it can't be so preposterous that everybody knows the person in question is fibbing.

There are at least 8 individuals who are going to testify that they spoke with Libby about Plame before Libby's conversation with Russert. Russert is going to testify that Plame did not come up in their conversation.  Documentary evidence has been provided that shows dealing with Wilson was a priority for Libby, per written orders from his boss.

So, when Libby claims that the first he heard of it was from Russert, you have to either accept a) that eight people's memory is so faulty as to be dismissible, or b) that Libby is such a scatterbrain that he can have conversations with 8 defferent people about the same thing and not remember any of them or the topic or c) he's lying.

Use Dr Occam's device.  

The bottom line is Libby is raising two memory defenses at trial. One is Libby saying his own memory is faulty. The other is Libby's claim that the government witnesses' memories are faulty. As Team Libby wrote in his April 12 pleading,

   In a case where the jury will be asked to decide whose memory is accurate and whose statements are not trustworthy, it is perfectly appropriate to use Rule 16 to gather evidence that will tend to suggest that the testimony of certain government witnesses about their conversations with Mr. Libby is not believable. The materiality of such documents is not tied to whether the documents were reviewed by Mr. Libby or whether they describe meetings or conversations in which he took part.

    In a case where it is already manifest that the memories of many witnesses conflict regarding many different conversations, it is not fair to foreclose the possibility that witnesses other than Mr. Libby may be confused or mistaken about relevant events.

Perhaps Wells would be better off combining his memory defenses and arguing that since the memories of all the witnesses as well as Libby have been shown to be faulty, that alone constitutes a reasonable doubt that anyone could recall events exactly right months or more after they occurred. It may be his best shot at convincing the jury that Libby didn't intentionally lie -- he was just, like the other witnesses, mistaken.

However I don't buy that he should be held to a atandard that if he isn't convinced that Libby will aquitted his points are less valid.