From this morning’s press briefing, Tony Snow says that he won’t “close the door” for a possible pardon for Libby somewhere down the road.
Tony Snow explains Bush’s Solomonic decision — you “need to respect the jury system,” you see. It’s just judges, apparently, who don’t require such respect.
There are just too many ways to pick apart the hollowness, the transparency of President Bush’s fear-based commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. Thirty months was apparently ‘excessive’, despite the fact that this is what the federal sentencing guidelines recommend and numerous people are thus today sitting in prison under a similarly excessive term.
But, okay, let’s say it’s excessive. What would be appropriate? One year? Six months? A month? Can anyone really say that the prosecution was legitimate (which the president does) and that the verdict was legitimate (which the president does) and that probation with no jail time is the appropriate penalty?
Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby.
The whole thing is just too transparent. To borrow the Army phrase, President Bush wasn’t willing to let Libby make first contact with the federal prison system. There’s only one argument that makes sense of this decision: no jail time. That’s the argument. Scooter’s price. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to go the Fitzgerald route to reduce his sentence.
SecDef Bob Gates wants to trade with the Dem Congress: long-term presence in Iraq for a near-term troop drawdown.
President Bush’s first statement on the Libby commutation …
Ahhh, yesterday when we were young and Bush still wanted to get to the bottom of the CIA leak case, a little walk down (video) memory lane in today’s episode of TPMtv. You’ll want to see this one …
Today the Republican field’s fundraising numbers are in for the quarter — and Rudy Guiliani takes it with $17 million, up on Mitt Romney‘s $14 million.
Dennis Kucinich to keynote a convention of political cartoonists. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
Happy News: BBC journalist Alan Johnston, held hostage in Gaza since March 12, is released.