Planet Abell

W hat makes the commutation of "Scooter" Libby's sentence so appalling is that it perpetuates the appearance at least of a conspiracy that now reaches the Oval Office. Even the mother of all presidential interventions, Ford's pardon of Nixon, bears up better: at least it helped to expedite a national healing process. A Bad Boy, But A Good Boy Yes, President Bush said in his statement that Libby had been a bad boy and had to be punished, and the fine and probation Is this proof that the Bush White House has devolved into a collection of dead- enders , slogging through their last throes? were left untouched. But Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff is family. He was a part of a what looks very much like a big effort to spread the administration's war propaganda by attacking critics with smears and dirty tricks. Political crimes are particularly heinous because they are about stealing power. They are ideological and self-justifying. By ensuring tha...

"I wish we weren't judging Libby. This sucks." -- Libby trial juror Denis Collins, describing the defendant as a "fall guy" I t's a tough job, but somebody has to do it -- whether it is being the point person for a campaign to discredit a political opponent of your boss, or serving on a jury that is judging the wrong person. "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty of four of the five criminal counts against him, charges that he lied to a grand jury and to FBI investigators over how and from whom he learned that former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. Wilson appeared on the White House radar by writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times recounting his CIA-backed mission to Niger, I wonder if Libby is replaying his grand jury testimony and FBI interviews over and over and asking himself why oh why he just didn't remember at all. Would there have been charges if he didn't remember but also didn't contra...

It's not perjury; it's just business. -- "Caught in the Spin Cycle," by Michael Wolff, in Vanity Fair A very smart friend of unrepentant left-wing views shares with me this very fine Vanity Fair article about the Libby trial. Funny thing: it is business. Dirty politics is part of politics and when discovered speaks volumes to voters about the perpetrators in a way no other perspective can. Bring it on and blow it, I say. But there is a cost of doing business, and sometimes it involves a visit to the graybar hotel. Libby's "pardon him now" backers should know better ; there is no rational sanctuary If the purpose of justice is prosecute the right people and appropriately punish a crime then it is a shame that there will be no more indictments and that Robert Novack flourishes, and it would be a shame if Scooter gets more time than Martha Stewart . in portraying Libby as a man wronged unless one believes he was wronged not by Patrick Fitzgerald, but by ...

It's a little hard watching law-and-order types contort themselves to argue that "Scooter" Libby shouldn't do time. Talk about jury tampering. Here's a great quote from an article at The Politico : A well-connected Republican whose views have reached Bush’s inner circle said that if Libby goes to prison, "It would be seen by the religious and policy conservatives as the president abandoning his loyalty virtue for the hedonistic pleasure of political expediency." Wow. So respecting a jury verdict and enforcing existing laws -- you know, the ones movement conservatives always say are enough to deal with immigration, gun control, marriage -- is a weakness, a fix for a pol. Real men are ... loyal. Libby Has To Go To Jail A respite wouldn't upset me, with a Sword of Damocles still hanging by a thread above him. Once he's in the slammer there's much less chance he'll be inclined to cooperate. On the other hand, it is downright fun watching Pat ...

Sorry for that cheap imitation of the trite "loses his appeal" joke. "We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," Libby attorney attorney Theodore Wells said . "However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear." Wells cites that inevitability of a re-trial if Libby were to win -- a re-trial would likely be ordered by an appellate court, but the decision to proceed would be the prosecutor's. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has said the leak investigation is closed. It does make one one wonder: why pay for something that is a cheap imitation of pardon?