HINES - Libby Decision Fits W's World

in my local rag, the Houston Chronicle, Cragg lays it out pretty clearly.

Libby decision fits W's world
By CRAGG HINES

You weren't surprised were you? You shouldn't have been. President Bush's decision to toss out Scooter Libby's 30-month prison sentence was consistent with this administration's approach to blowing Valerie Wilson's CIA cover in the rush to invade Iraq.

What a perfect way for a politician who will never again face the voters to celebrate Independence Day.

Rule of law? Not this crowd. What's a little perjury and obstruction of justice among neocon friends?

Giving Karl Rove, another acknowledged leaker, the Medal of Freedom (à la Tenent, Franks and Bremer) may be just around the corner.

Once again, you must parse Bush, whose sentences you often cannot diagram, as closely as the wily wordsmith Bill Clinton.

On Sept. 30, 2003, Bush said that if there was a leaker in his administration, "I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of."

Well, Libby violated laws (even Bush admits that, in his commutation statement's spare nod to the jury), and the president has "taken care of" him, sparing Libby well-deserved time in the slammer. How foolish to think Bush would allow a judge to set a sentence that is within the federal guidelines. Instead, the president decided it was "excessive."

"Excessive?" That is especially rich coming from the top of an administration that has consistently rejected attempts to reform Draconian federal sentencing guidelines.

But you don't have to go back to a Bush statement almost four years ago to see this president squirming in regard to the CIA leak and the resulting inquiry by a special counsel. The commutation statement is about too clever by half.

Among its striking passages is the praise of Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago and special counsel in the leak inquiry. Hold up your hand if you believe, as Bush's statement said, he sees Fitzgerald as "a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged."

The White House has done little to conceal its view that Fitzgerald should be shipped to Guantanamo as an enemy combatant.

Then there's Bush's turn as defense attorney. Libby, Bush wants you to know, is "a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service." You could have said the same thing about Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

Bush carefully referred to "the district court." He meant U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, generally just the kind of jurist a hang 'em high president should relish.

Walton was appointed to the District of Columbia Superior Court by both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Bush-43 elevated Walton to the federal bench early in his White House term.

Bush should have come clean with a commutation statement that said: "I don't want Scooter to go to prison. And he won't. So there."

At least Bush got one thing right. He observed that Libby's reputation is "damaged forever." As it should be.

The commutation just adds to the perpetual low regard that Bush seems to have ensured for his two terms.

There is, of course, no present or short-term price for Bush, who is fresh out of political capital and whose tenure is down to the vapors.

The same can't be said of the desperate clutch of Republican candidates seeking to succeed Bush.

Already feeling electoral heat for Bush's intransigence in Iraq, the Republican contenders must now, properly, explain themselves with regard to the commutation and prospect of an eventual pardon.

As Republican political operatives had gamed it out, Bush would wait until after the 2008 election to act in the Libby case. They banked on appeals keeping Libby out of prison until then.

But Judge Walton ruled in June that Libby's sentence should begin immediately, and a unanimous federal appeals panel on Tuesday refused to postpone Libby's incarceration. Bush's hand was forced.

Bush did not make it any easier for the Republican presidential contenders with his refusal Tuesday to rule out an eventual pardon for Libby.

Let's hear if the Republican contenders would pardon Libby, the absolute right of any president, just in case Bush doesn't do it on the way out the door.

Once more we can recall Bush's repeated pledge in the 2000 campaign to put his hand on the Bible and swear "to not only uphold the laws of the land" but also "the honor and the dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God."

Can you wait for Jan. 19, 2009? Financier and former fugitive Mark Rich could look like a choirboy and his pardoner Clinton the soul of discretion.

Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in Washington, D.C.
cragg.hines@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/hines/4942110.html