National Review's Rich Lowry echoes a point that's been made many times before but never seems to sink in. Two reporters, one from Time magazine and another from the New York Times are facing contempt of court charges for failing to reveal a source for a "crime" that likely never occurred.

An axiom for defense lawyers goes something like: "If you can argue the law, argue the law; if you can't argue the law, argue the facts; if you can do neither, try to change the law." It is this last, usually desperate tack that has been taken by the journalists' defense, which is urging the creation of a new absolute federal privilege against journalists being forced to reveal their sources. An appeals court has already unanimously nixed this idea. A much simpler, more obvious argument is available to the defense — that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act that was supposedly violated in this case wasn't. The act establishes an extremely high standard for a criminal violation — the agent in question has to be undercover (Plame wasn't), and the leaker has to know she was undercover and be intentionally trying to undermine U.S. intelligence (very, very unlikely).

So, we've got a couple of journalists who are going to go to jail in order to try to keep alive a bogus "crime" in order to have something to bash the Bush administration. Maybe the journalists ought to get their own lawyers -- the ones hired by their bosses appear not to have their best interests at heart.