Where'd We Leave That Darn Fact?

During one eye-opening episode in the Libby saga, jurors were told that Libby discussed critical information about Wilson while on a jet with his family on July 12, 2003. It was his son's birthday and as a treat, Libby arranged for the whole family to fly to Norfolk on Air Force Two with Cheney for the christening of the USS Ronald Reagan. On the flight, Cheney's former press secretary Cathie Martin testified that she was trying to get Libby to focus on media reports about the Wilson story.

A vast industry has arisen around the enhancement of memory. Pharmaceutical companies hope to soon offer memory pills that boost the activity of neurotransmitters. Gurus like Jerry Lucas and Harry Lorrayne have devised brain games to keep the memory in shape.

In the Libby courtroom, BlackBerrys abound. The court reporter asked Fitzgerald to slow down so his words could be recorded. Onlookers jot on newspapers and legal pads. Everybody uses mnemonic devices.

Why do we even have memories?

Memories save time and lives and cultures. They shape our past, our future, ourselves. The loss of memory can be an isolating feeling. Movies such as "Memento" and "The Bourne Identity" explore the frustrations of personal memory loss. Umberto Eco's 2005 novel, "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana," is about a book dealer who has forgotten everything but the books he has read.

"Memories," as Barbra Streisand sings it, "Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?"

Or as the Andrew Lloyd Webber tune "Memory" goes, "I remember the time I knew what happiness was."

We are the sum of our memories. As individuals, as members of societies and nations. The remembering of tragedies and cataclysmic events, such as the Holocaust or 9/11, is essential to the identity of cultures.

Just as there are levels of memories stored in the brain, so are there levels of consequences when those memories are lost or misplaced. When a person loses the keys to his car, he is stranded. When a family doesn't pay a utility bill it is left in the dark. When a nation forgets the lessons of one quagmire of a war it may end up in another.

Does Washington have a memory?

Watching Libby's trial brings back foggy recollections of other famous Washington cases that hinged on a person's ability, or inability, to remember.

That of Dwight L. Chapin, for instance. Appointments secretary to President Nixon, Chapin was also the godfather of Nixon's "dirty tricks" campaign against other 1972 presidential contenders. Chapin hired Donald Segretti to oversee the foul deeds. Segretti was called before the Watergate grand jury and ratted out Chapin. When Chapin appeared before the grand jury in 1975, he was asked if he had ever given Segretti "any directions or instructions with respect to any single or particular candidate?"

"Not that I recall," Chapin replied. For that -- and another similar -- response, Chapin was found guilty of lying to the grand jury. The "faulty memory" defense did not work for him; he went to jail.

Then there was Edwin Meese III. In 1984, a special prosecutor investigated the financial dealings of Meese, counsel to President Reagan at the time. The prosecutor determined that Meese was lousy at keeping records and at remembering things, but that bad memory was not a crime. Meese was cleared of the allegations. He went on to become attorney general.