George Bush Should Pardon Scooter Libby
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.
- Read more by Michael Barone.
- Read more from the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
- Read more about Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
- Read more about Valerie Plame.
Tags: Valerie Plame | Lewis "Scooter" Libby | Jeb Bush | Robert Novak | Bush administration
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Reader Comments
...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.
Yes but pardon others also
Certainly I can see that Libby probably did not really commit any real crime, and his memory on the subject may be different than others. He will almost certainly not serve any time because President Bush has commuted his sentence anyway.
I would say Libby should be pardoned, but so should many others who are actually serving time for some other non-crime. This could be simple drug possession. There are also thousands of young men in prison who are conviced of statutory rape of 17 year olds after the age of consent for sex was raised in some states in a twisted response to paediphilia. These are examples of the non-crimes that should be addressed by Presidential pardons. President Bush has been very stingy with his pardon pin. He can go out with a good legacy of pardoning cultural prisoners.
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