Rearranging the Chairs

The Fitzgerald Profiles

Peter Slevin and Carol D. Leonnig write in The Washington Post that "in a case with huge political stakes for the White House, a portrait is emerging of a special counsel with no discernible political bent who prepared the ground with painstaking sleuthing and cold-eyed lawyering.

"So far, Fitzgerald has given neither Republicans nor Democrats grounds to question his motives as he excavated the machinations of a White House that prided itself on its discipline and its ability to push its pro-war message. He did not blink, lawyers and witnesses say, and he did not leak."

There are two points worthy of special attention.

Slevin and Leonnig write: "A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to 'two senior administration officials.' Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly."

And they note: "In its first 15 months, the investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office."

Think about that number for a minute. It's astonishingly low by any standard.

Consider that over about the same period of time that Fitzgerald spent $723,000, independent counsel David M. Barrett spent more than $3 million.

Who the heck is Barrett? He was appointed more than ten years ago to investigate then-Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros. It's not clear what he's been doing lately, other than tidying up. He's spent more than $21 million in all.

And as George Lardner Jr. wrote in The Washington Post on March 31, 2001, by that point independent counsel investigations of Clinton had cost almost $60 million -- about $52 million by Kenneth W. Starr alone.

Here are the last three GAO reports on independent counsel spending. This one covers the six months ending on March 31, 2005; this one covers the six months ending Sept. 30, 2004; this one covers the six months ending March 31, 2004.

Whatever else Fitzgerald may or may not be, he's definitely a bargain.

Scott Shane and David Johnston profile Fitzgerald in the New York Times. Edward Epstein does the same in the San Francisco Chronicle.