Sunday, July 12, 2009

Opinion

Michael Barone

George Bush Should Pardon Scooter Libby

December 23, 2008 01:52 PM ET | Michael Barone | Permanent Link | Print

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I wholeheartedly endorse the position taken by this lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal urging George W. Bush to pardon Scooter Libby. Libby was a dedicated and hypercompetent public servant who was brought down by a prosecutor investigating a scandal that wasn't a scandal. The investigation purportedly was an attempt to discover who had told Robert Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA "operative" (Novak's word). But prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew before the investigation began that the leaker was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. It is astonishing that Armitage and his friend and boss Secretary of State Colin Powell didn't inform Bush of this and allowed two of his top aides, Libby and Karl Rove, to be harassed by Fitzgerald for months and years.

A Libby pardon will of course be assailed by many in the press, just as many in the press treated the Plame disclosure as the most serious breach of intelligence in years. But these are the same people who gleefully hailed the New York Times 's disclosure of NSA surveillance of suspected terrorists outside the United States and of the Swift bank system—two breaches of intelligence that, unlike the Plame disclosure, materially damaged the government's efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. It will be interesting to see if the press chooses to willfully damage U.S. intelligence operations in the Obama administration. In the meantime, please, Mr. President, pardon Scooter Libby.

 

Tags: Valerie Plame | Jeb Bush | Robert Novak | Bush administration | Libby, Lewis

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Reader Comments

Libby should be punished or disciplined

Libby committed serious offenses, and it would be immoral for Bush to pardon Libby.

Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang

B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996

Messiah College, Grantham, PA

Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993

...and Barack Obama should go after any criminal wrong doing by Bush

Justice needs to be even handed. If we let criminal behavior by the Bush regime go unpunished then we are just a Banana Republic.

Not convicting Nixon gave us Cheney and Rumsfeld. I don't want to begin to imagine what this gang of criminals will instigate if they are not brought to justice!

Bush Pardons Libby

Bush ordered all WH staff to cooperate fully with the special prosecutor. He lied during, not after the investigation - Michael Barrone's absurd comment the Fitzgerald notwithstanding.That means Libby not only lied under oath, but defied a presidential order. The result of the insult to the president, was the president praising Libby and commuting his sentence. This would look strange for any administration but this one.

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Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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