Trying Times for Wilsons, Too

Valerie and Joe Wilson, seen last year. "I think we will sleep better tonight," he said yesterday after the Libby verdict. (By Lawrence Jackson -- Associated Press)

With his affect of courtly cheer and his silver hair swept long in back, he looked every bit the cosmopolitan free spirit who at the height of the flap appeared in a Vanity Fair photo spread with his wife, all glammed up. But sitting down to answer the same questions again and again, now professorial in his spectacles and his prim white pocket square, he stuck to a solemn, almost melodramatically constitutional message.

"We really see this as a reaffirmation that this is a nation of laws," he said. "We live in a great democracy. That was demonstrated by this trial and the verdict, that no man is above the law.

"If you take the time to look at the testimony, it makes very clear the extent to which senior officials within this administration embarked on a disinformation campaign, the justification of which was to cover up the lies they said in the first place. And the methodology used was to engage in an unprecedented smear campaign, which would have succeeded had it not been illegal to divulge the name of a covert officer."

But Libby was convicted only of lying, and no one was convicted of that other stuff.

"Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion," came the practiced argument. "That doesn't mean he wasn't a racketeer."

The formerly classified woman, Valerie Plame Wilson, was nowhere to be seen. She was at their home in the Foxhall neighborhood, Wilson said, putting the finishing touches on her book and taking care of their 7-year-old twins. The family plans to move shortly to New Mexico.

Arguments on the Wilsons' civil suit are scheduled for May in U.S. District Court. The couple are seeking unspecified monetary damages from the four officials for violating their constitutional rights by allegedly retaliating against them. Wilson and Melanie Sloan, executive director of the legal group, said they want to hold officials accountable and use the discovery process to expose government actions in the run-up to war.

The couple, as Joe Wilson pointed out, "served our country for a combination of 45 years." He was acting ambassador to Iraq when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; his lunch partner yesterday was the one who notified him of the invasion. Wilson was later named ambassador to two small African nations by George H.W. Bush, who had hailed his courage in sheltering and helping to free U.S. citizens in Baghdad before the Gulf War started. He also served as senior director for African affairs in the Clinton White House.

Hearing that President Bush had expressed sympathy for Libby, Wilson called on the president to "express his sorrow to my wife, whose career was destroyed."

He also said, "The president ought to live up to his word and fire Mr. Rove."

One part of Wilson's message evolved over the day, his attitude toward a possible presidential pardon for Libby. In the teleconference he said, "I'm a firm believer in the Constitution, which accords the president the power of pardon."

In later interviews he said, "On reflection," Bush had a conflict of interest, and so "there's no place in a case like this for the use of a presidential pardon."

Last night he was scheduled for three more network appearances, with Keith Olbermann, Larry King and Anderson Cooper.

As the afternoon was winding down, a law-firm staffer said a radio producer had called seeking a morning interview. Not possible.

"I'm supposed to be doing something with Diane Rehm tomorrow," Wilson said.

But for now, he was going back home to take an aspirin.

The conviction of Scooter Libby was giving Joe Wilson a headache.