Two good blog posts about Bush and Libby

[nancylebov]

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/07/more-historical.html

The Federalists arguing about whether the President should have the right to pardon with a bonus mention of Vice Presidents as public hazard, and a suggestion that clemency is only needed in cruel, sloppy legal systems.

Link found at Unqualified Offerings.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/07/l33t-justice.html

The commutation, rather than being some canny half-measure some are calling it, is actually worse than a pardon. The President's saying "Fine, fine, I agree a jury of his peers found him guilty of multiple counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, but I don't think he should be punished for that." He's not even saying that he believes Scooter's innocent. He just doesn't think people like Scooter should have to suffer just because they're guilty.

This isn't the best bit, but I'm going to leave the gaming analysis of the commutation to be read in order.

If Kung Fu Monkey seems vaguely familiar, it's because I linked to his piece about amusement park rides.

Link found at Making Light.

Comments

[enegim.livejournal.com]

If you want to read a truly nauseating article about the commutation, see David Brooks in today's NY Times. Blecch.

[madfilkentist]

Bush uses his power to pardon or commute with great discretion and only under the most pressing circumstances -- like when his pals have been convicted. A couple of blogs have claimed that this is the first time Bush has reduced anyone's sentence, and I haven't seen the claim disputed.

[ndrosen.livejournal.com]

Here's my take on it, as posted on my blog (well, I'll try to clean up a few typos) shortly before I read Nancy's post:

By commuting Scooter Libby's sentence, but not pardoning him, President Bush seems to have arrived at a compromise likely to please very few people. The Democrats will surely try to make political hay of this; they've already started. The spin will go that Libby is being let off for committing perjury to protect higher-ups from the exposure and punishment they deserve for outing Valerie Plame, and besides, Republicans didn't think perjury was such a trifle when Clinton committed it about sex.

That doesn't make sense, whatever your opinions about the present administration's policies and other misdeeds. The leaker who outed Plame was Richard Armitage, not Bush or Cheney, and Special Persecutor Fitzpatrick knew it. He caught Libby in a discrepancy between what Libby remembered and what someone else remembered. It is not, so far as I am aware, proven that what Libby said was false, and even if was false, it may well have been an innocent mistake. Human memories are fallible, as most of us know, and as the memory expert who was not allowed to testify would have told the jury, and if Fitzpatrick asked enough people enough questions, someone would make a mistake about who told him what when.

So why the commutation? It will offend many Americans who think Libby did something seriously wrong, apparently give political advantage to the Democrats, and fail to satisfy many of Bush's Republican supporters. If Bush didn't just blunder, I can come up with one explanation: He expects a court of appeals to throw out Libby's conviction, after which he, Bush, will be the man who kept an innocent man out of prison while the wheels of justice finally turned, and Libby will at last get back his fine and most of his reputation, if not his legal expenses, and the Republicans will have this to throw into the Democrats' faces, shortly before the next election cycle.

Am I being too clever by half? What do people think?

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting links, especially the Kung Fu one. Thanks.