Bush and Libby: The commutation is a profile in non-courage.

Opinion Journal (Wall Street Journal) ^ | July 3, 2007

[EveningStar]

President Bush's commutation late yesterday afternoon of the prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will at least spare his former aide from 2 1/2 years in prison. But by failing to issue a full pardon, Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy...

[tobyhill]

The “neutral” media is really showing their true agenda on this one.

[SunStar]

Bush has no stomach for fighting the Democrats. This issue shows just how ineffective his “new tone” has been during his entire presidency. He was right to at least commute the sentence, but he should have fought them tooth and nail behind the scenes so that they never got this far.

[weegee]

The Nifongism show trial of Scooter Libby was the real travesty of justice. The shadow government lashing out by any means necessary.

[VR-21]

I'm inclined to agree with the article. Bush should have issued a full pardon to Libby, as his indictment ( proven phony by the revelation of Armitage being the "outer") and conviction on largely contrived evidence in a kangaroo court was an obscenity.

The commutation was a step in the right direction, but a full pardon was called for if only to stick a middle finger in Fitzfongs face.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Libby was convicted by a jury. If anyone should be blamed for this, it should be Libby’s stupid and overpriced lawyers who let this jury full of bozos and Democrat hacks get on in the first place.

[pissant]

To the WSJ, this is a failure in courage. To the WSJ, Bush’s support of amnesty was a profile in courage.

Pissant to the WSJ- go piss up a rope.

[meandog]

help me out here:
1. William Jefferson Clinton committed perjury in his Monica Lewinsky testimony.
2. Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury in the Valerie Plame affair.
3. William Jefferson Clinton lost his law license.
4. Scooter Libby lost his law license.
5. William Jefferson Clinton was fined $250,000
6. Scooter Libby was fined $250,000
7. William Jefferson Clinton served no jail time for perjury.
8. Scooter Libby will serve no jail time.
9. William Jefferson Clinton is revered by the MSM.
10.Scooter Libby is despised by the MSM.... Fair and balanced journalism?

[tobyhill]

This is a start and allows Libby to clear his name on his own then if that doesn’t work out because of our divided country President Bush can give him the pardon as he’s walking out the door.

[MrB]

The “new tone” has done nothing but PO the base.
The Demmies are just as vitriolic as ever, and he has gained NOTHING with it.

Time for someone like Fred Thompson to step up and slap the left down by confronting them on every moonbat issue - through his press secretary, Ann Coulter.

[lonestar67]

Great points.

[Steve_Seattle]

I'm sure Libby appreciates avoiding the slammer, but he can't be happy with Bush's statement. Bush seems to accept the guilty verdict as legitimate, and the trial as having been an impartial affair.

It's almost as if Bush doesn't realize that the verdict was largely based on the jury's acceptance of Wilson's conspiracy theory, according to which Bush/Cheney deliberately lied about Iraq and set out to punish Wilson/Plame for telling the truth. It's hard for us to keep defending the administration when the administration won't defend itself.

[Cicero]

I think the WSJ was wrong about amnesty but right about this. Still, I appreciate the President’s action, even if it only went half way.

Does Scooter get his money back if he wins the appeal?

[Enchante]

This is one of the most important points to be made, all of the admin. officials who have cowered in silence and failed to set the record straight on Joe Wilson's lies, etc:

"As the event unfolded, it fell to Mr. Libby to defend the Administration against Mr. Wilson's original charge, with little public assistance or support from the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell or Stephen Hadley. In no small part because of these profiles in non-courage, it was Mr. Libby who found himself caught up in prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's hunt for the Plame leaker, which he and his masters at Justice knew from Day One to be State Department official Richard Armitage. As Mr. Fitzgerald's obsessive exercise ground forward, Mr. Libby got caught in a perjury net that we continue to believe trapped an innocent man who lost track of what he said, when he said it, and to whom."

It is one of the most pernicious aspects of Joe Wilson's dishonest jihad against the WH that serious officials who knew better had to choose between battling in the enemedia to set the record straight or concentrating on their jobs in time of war and letting Libby hang out to dry. No competent journalist or politician should be sitting back and allowing the travesties of misinformation sit out there unchallenged, but everyone who knows better has been cowed into silence by the enemedia.

[Enchante]

"It's hard for us to keep defending the administration when the administration won't defend itself."

That's what leaves me shocked and appalled by the statement from Pres. Bush, though I'm certainly glad that an innocent Libby avoids jail time..... but how on earth can the WH give such an endorsement of the fairness of Fitzfong's "investigation" and sham trial???? Either key people in the WH don't know any better, which is frightening, or else they do know better but choose to pander to the delusions of the 'RATs and the MSM in giving credibility to this farce. Either way, it's a disaster for truth, justice, and the American Way!

[cwb]

“The “neutral” media is really showing their true agenda on this one.”

---

They certainly are...especially after watching the WH press briefing with Tony Snow. How these people can even pretend to be be detached, objective journalists is beyond me.

On the contrary, every member of that press-corp acted as if they were “personally” offended and effected by this decision; instead of objective questioning, it looked like an inquisition.

Sadly, I just can’t ever recall any of this same consternation when Clinton, Burglar, Barry...or any other democrat for that fact, escaped the jaws of justice. Democrats have successfully criminalized politics—and more specifically, conservatism.

[wildbill]

I think what Bush did was to protect Libby’s right to appeal. If he’d pardoned him, the case would be moot.

Now Libby’s lawyers can continue the appeal and perhaps win his exoneration.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Bush can take, but he can’t dish it out.

More importantly, he again demonstrates a disturbing lack of loyalty to those that should get it.

Any man that can’t, or won’t be loyal to those that deserve it, is worth nothing.

What makes this doubling galling is the fact that Bush is a lame duck who has already shot his wad on the amnesty bill. A pardon for Libby would have incurred no more political fallout than this commutation. Bush has no political capital to lose.

[PhiKapMom]

Time for someone with NO ties to Rove to step up — there are 10 worthy candidates not joined at the hip with Rove.

[small voice in the wilderness]

Know what's missing here, and has been for a LONG time? Where's W.'s outrage and genuine pissed-offness of a man wrongly convicted by a circus jury of trained seals being led by the bait feeder, fitz? This was obvious railroading by Fitz the Persecuter. And it deserved W. coming out the way he did after 9/11 with strength and DARING anyone to whine, bitch, moan and groan about his decision. Who dares to challenge him? Valerie Plume, Joe Wilson, Sandy Berger, Mark Rich, the FALN members? Bill Clinton? FEH. W. needs his mojo back. I want him pissed off, and fed up again. And at the RIGHT people.