In Defense of Misremembering Valerie Plame Leaks

Remembering is hard, explains Scooter Libby's defense team:

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby wants a memory expert to explain how he -- and prosecution witnesses -- may have different recollections of their conversations about a CIA officer's identity.

The crux of Libby's defense will be that he was too preoccupied with national security "matters of life and death" and that he could have easily confused "snippets of conversations" he had with reporters from Time magazine, NBC and the New York Times…

They said [Robert A. Bjork, chairman of the psychology department at the University of California at Los Angeles] can explain that contrary to what most jurors think, "memory does not function like a tape recorder, with memories recorded, stored and played back verbatim."

As the White House has been trying to explain for decades, memory functions as a tape recorder, with memories recorded, stored, and accidentally erased by White House secretaries.

Matt Welch skewered Scooter pen pal Judith Miller back in October.