Bummer for this dude (USAToday, June 21, 2007) …

The Supreme Court made it harder Thursday for most defendants to challenge their federal prison sentences.

Appeals courts that review prison terms imposed by trial judges may deem them reasonable if they fall within federal sentencing guidelines adopted in the mid-1980s, the high court said.

The justices upheld a 33-month sentence given to Victor Rita for perjury and making false statements. Rita is a 25-year military veteran and former civilian federal employee.

The prison term falls within the guidelines range and was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, posing the question of whether sentences within the guidelines ordinarily will be considered reasonable.

From ABC: “Rita had sought a sentence lower than 33 months, based on his physical condition — he has diabetes and other illnesses — his likely vulnerability in prison and his military service in Vietnam and in Operation Desert Storm.”

Sheesh, even the right-wing Post oped page thinks the commutation was “not defensible.” Talk about over-shooting your audience.

Many others will note this but I feel obliged to do so for the record. The real offense here is not so much or not simply that the president has spared Scooter Libby the punishment that anyone else would have gotten for this crime (for what it’s worth, I actually find the commutation more outrageous than a full pardon). The deeper offense is that the president has used his pardon power to shortcircuit the investigation of a crime to which he himself was quite likely a party, and to which, his vice president, who controls him, certainly was.

The president’s power to pardon is full and unchecked, one of the few such powers given the president in the constitution. Yet here the president has used it to further obstruct justice. In a sense, perhaps we should thank the president for bringing the matter full circle. Began with criminality, ends with it.

Today’s Must Read: the donors to Libby’s defense trust ($5 million strong) rejoice!

Hillary campaigns with Bill in Iowa. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

Another point I’m obliged to make.

Here on the Times Oped page you’ll see David Brooks column claiming that the information Joe Wilson brought before the public four years ago turned out to all be a crock, a bunch of lies. And we’ll let Brooks’ scribble be a stand-in for what you will hear universally today from the right — namely, that just as Scooter Libby was charged with perjury and not the underlying crime of burning an American spy, the deeper underlying offense, the lie about uranium from Africa, didn’t even exist — that at the end of the day it was revealed that Wilson’s claims, which started the whole train down the tracks, were discredited as lies.

You’ll even hear softer versions of this claim from mainstream media outlets not normally considered part of the rump of American conservatism.

There aren’t many subjects on which I claim expertise. But this is one of them. I think I know the details of this one — both the underlying story of the forgeries and their provenance and the epi-story of Wilson and Plame — as well as any journalist who’s written about the story. The Fitzgerald investigation is probably the part of it I know the least about, comparatively. (It is also incumbent on me to say that in the course of reporting on this story over these years I’ve gotten to know Joe Wilson fairly well. And I consider him a friend.)

And with that knowledge, I have to say that the claim that Wilson’s charges have been discredited, disproved or even meaningfully challenged is simply false. What he said on day one is all true. It’s really as simple as that.

There’s a tendency, even among too many people of good faith and good politics, to shy away from asserting and admitting this simple fact because Wilson has either gone on too many TV shows or preened too much in some photo shoot. But that is disreputable and shameful. The entire record of this story has been under a systematic, unfettered and, sadly, largely unresisted attack from the right for four years. Key facts have been buried under an avalanche of misinformation. The then-chairman of the senate intelligence committee made his committee an appendage of the White House and himself the president’s bawd and issued a report built on intentional falsehood and misdirection.

No one is perfect. The key dividing line is who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. Wilson is on the former side, his critics the latter. Everything else is triviality.

From day one this story has been about official lies — corrupt power buttressed by fraud. Along the way it became a story about the president’s hireling commentators who lost their honor by becoming part of the fraud. What Wilson said was true. His attackers are all parties to the same lie. Don’t forget that.

The administration floats an exit strategy for closing down Guantanamo Bay. The devil’s in the details.

TPM Reader AR …

It seems pretty clear to me that Bush would not be taking nearly as much heat if he’d waited for Libby to do some time in prison. So why the hurry? Was the hurry because Bush wanted to take no chance that Libby would start talking? I think it is likely it was. And that is the approach the Dems should take in keeping this story in the news: What is Bush so determined to keep hidden? The Dems can sound compassionate and reasonable by suggesting a commutation after some time in prison would not have been unreasonable. That there must be some good reason why Bush is willing to take so much political heat.

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.