Why did he do it?

Say what you want about Andrew Sullivan, and it is easy to disagree with him at times, but he has a way of summing up the meat and potatoes of a situation:

Libby will face a trial in which the vice-president may have to testify under oath. Political questions remain. The obvious question that still lingers is a simple one. Why did Libby lie? Why did such a smart and meticulous man put himself at risk of 30 years in jail if he had done nothing wrong in the first place?

To me, this simple question is the one that doesn't jibe with the right wing talking point that Libby wasn't convicted the crime at the heart of the investigation, but was caught up in a silly misstep of language.  Jay Tea over at Wizbang, while being critical of Libby's lies, tries to dismiss it this way:

1) From what I've heard so far, Libby is being indicted for lying about how he told the truth about a liar.

2) Apparently, the strongest evidence against Libby is the contradictions between he told investigators and his own notes taken at the time, notes that he provided the investigators. So, in essence, he "hung himself out to dry" by telling a different story from what he had documented, then turned in.

3) None of the things that Libby has been indicted for occurred before the start of the investigation. In other words, as of right now there was apparently no crime committed in the actions that triggered the investigation.

4) It looks right now like Libby was guilty of being either stupid, arrogant, or both. There was nothing criminal that needed covering up, but still he managed to obfuscate and obstruct enough about nothing to get his own ass in a sling.

While I'd, of course, disagree with point one, the rest of them are true.  They don't, however, address the central issue which Sullivan posited before.  There has to be a reason that Libby, one of the smartest minds in Washington, would be so stupid as to cough up the ball like this.

This isn't to say that there is some grand conspiracy here. I'm completely ready to accept the premise that Cheney, Rove and Libby wanted to get their knocks in on Wilson by outing his wife, and didn't think about the possible consequences.  I might even, at risk of being lynched by my liberal cohorts, be willing to accept that they didn't realize, or at least didn't think about the fact, that outing Valerie Plame was illegal.  If that is the case, then they didn't do anything illegal under the Espionage Act.

That's fine.  The fact still remains that, after the fact, they engaged in a cover-up, and even if legal problems exist, they aren't as problematic as the unbelievable political and ethical problems that have been created.  It was wrong to smear Wilson for being right (something that, I'll repeat again, the White House admitted to).  It was definitely wrong,even if it doesn't rise to the level illegal, to out a CIA agent in the process.  The right wing's dismissal of the whole situation as much ado about nothing certainly doesn't mesh with one of their other most worn memes: That the Republican Party is the party of personal responsibility, and they were to return honor and dignity to the White House. 

In the process, they have lost the confidence of the American People, including almost the entirety of their centrist support, which has resulted in jeopardizing their entire political agenda.  The Supreme Court and the midterm elections.  What I can't understand is why there aren't more Republicans who are more angry at that egregious political incompetence.