As the Washington Post reported:

But Tuesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth tossed the case. “After years of litigation, endless depositions, the fictionalized portrayal of this lawsuit and its litigants on television,” Lamberth concluded in a 28-page opinion, “this court is left to conclude that with the lawsuit, to quote Gertrude Stein, 'there's no there there.' ”

The plaintiffs, he wrote, “after ample opportunity . . . have not produced any evidence of the far-reaching conspiracy that sought to use intimate details from FBI files for political assassinations that they alleged.

”The only thing that they have demonstrated is that this unfortunate episode -- about which they do have cause to complain -- was exactly what the defendants claimed: nothing more than a bureaucratic snafu."

But 'Filegate' didn't just happen. It wasn't able to maintain a decade-plus shelf life on its own. It was concocted and nurtured by partisan forces, both on Capitol Hill and in the media. And if there were any justice today, they'd have pay the mountainous legal fees that were wasted on 'Filegate' and similarly hollow Clinton-era scandals.

Writes Joe Conason at Salon:

Googling the term “Filegate” brings up stories that should embarrass the Wall Street Journal editorial page; the Media Research Center, whose chief wingnut Brent Bozell continued to flog this discredited fake as late as November 2007; National Review Online; WorldNetDaily; Fox News Channel, then in its noisome infancy; and indeed, nearly every other organ-grinder and kazoo-blower of the Republican noise machine.'

Unfortunately, the GOP Noise Machine appears to immune to embarrassments stemming from factual errors and conspiracy theories gone awry. And the Beltway press has made a tradition out of ignoring right-wing crusades that crash and burn.

So what's the unfortunate 'Filegate' legacy? There's still no political downside to launching fanciful, unglued attacks against Democrats. And it's a lesson that today's right-wing blogosphere, AM radio, and Fox News crew has taken to heart.