The conviction has left many conservatives in an odd position where, on one hand, they hold that Clinton's perjury was a serious issue, but that Libby's apparent perjury was not. Most people simply believe that if you lie to investigators and a grand jury, you should face the legal consequences. It is likely that this maneuver will seem like "politics as usual" even among the conservative grassroots.
One thing is for sure, the commutation will bring the case to the forefront for the next few days and then it will be forgotten forever. Much like the pardon of Nixon, it will cause some shouting in the short-term but soon people will resign themselves that the matter is closed and moved on. If there is any bright-spot of the whole affair, it is that it will finally be over.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - moonraven
It's essentially a pardon.
We all knew that he was going to pardon Libby--the only question was when.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Nobody commutes these days anymore. With the Internet, he could telecommute to his sentence.
3 - Dr Dreadful
It turns out that there was no underlying crime that has taken place...
Citation?
...Ambassador Wilson did in fact lie to Congress...
Citation?
...Valerie Plame was material in sending her husband on a junket to Niger even though he was not qualified to make the trip...
Citation?
These facts are beyond dispute.
Citation?
4 - zingzing
"the far-left extremists have demanded heads over Iraq"
it's an extremist posistion to demand accountability amongst our leaders?
that's a very fucked up statement. someone's head does deserve to role (and heads have roll..ed). what makes you think otherwise? our enormous success in iraq? um... that we should "stay the course?" that our leaders are well in control of the situation and a shake-up up top might make things go worse? for fuck's sake, wake up!
bush completely lied about his reasons for getting us into the war. it's pretty damn obvious now that he had far different motives than the ones that he fed us. it really doesn't matter at this point whether or not iraq had wmds, but still...
it's not illegal to lie. especially when the liar just COULD be dumb enough to believe the lies he told. you can't prove that bush isn't that stupid from his actions, but his smirk lets me know that there is something going on up there. no administration would leave such a buffoon up there if he wasn't smart enough to do what he was told. and with such a presence! (and it is a presense of some sort. you can just feel that the man was "touched" by something or other.)
(but will john answer this? or to anything? we shall have to see.)
5 - Lee Richards
People didn't just "move on" from the pardon of Nixon. It helped to elect Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford.
Just like you to ignore or distort history to try to weasel in a partisan spin. Does your credibility mean so little to you?
6 - BriMan
I couldnt get past the first paragraph - this site is wholly irrelevant to me from now on.
Later fred.
7 - BriMan
Sorry shoulda said second paragraph - the idiocy and ideology drips off my screen and distorts my brain waves...
8 - Zedd
John,
It's not SPIN
It's not a take
It's not a perspective
or
IGNORANCE
Not even
An ideological difference
This is vile. You are simply lying. What is sad is that you don't think it matters. Some of us want this country back from the pathological liers. Coulter, Rush, and O'Reilly need to be ignored.
Yuck!!!
9 - Rufus T. Firefly
Are you being willfully ignorant to generate traffic and comments?
"how someone can be guilty of obstruction without an underlying crime."
Have you spent any time in law enforcement? There's no way to tell if there's a crime to charge if there's no investigation. If that investigation is interfered with, it corrupts the whole process. I thought it was only the left that was soft on crime.
"Libby's apparent perjury"
No, he was convicted, so it is actual perjury not apparent. You may not agree with it, but that was the charge.
"It is likely that this maneuver will seem like 'politics as usual,"
Seem like? It is politics as usual. It's all about winning, not doing what is right. They snuck it in between the weekend and the holiday, hoping very few would notice and forget. If you can't see that, you really should give up writing about politics.
Lee, is absolutely right about Nixon. How old were in 1976? Feel free to do some research next time during your stampede to break news.
10 - John Bambenek
Check the public record... the facts are clear. You moonbats might not accept it, but the documents and paperwork is there.
Of course, that doesn't fit the template that Bush is Hitler.
11 - zingzing
and of course, all leftists think bush is hitler, right, jonny boy?
and all leftists are moonbats, i'm sure. because anything to the right of you is extreme, correct?
one day (and only for one day), i'd like to see what john's world would look like if he got his way. it would probably be a pretty rough place.
12 - Lee Richards
"The public record" says Libby was convicted and sentenced in a U.S. court of law, with real lawyers, judges, witnesses, gavels, Bibles, flags and everything.
The verdict didn't please God, Cheney, or anybody who really counts anymore (i.e. the White House.) So, once again, Bush declares the truth to be what HE says it is.
Your writings are as uninformed, superficial, "faith-based", and lacking in insight and reason as the "deep thinkers" you shill for.
13 - Lee Richards
BTW what is an "academic professional"? Since you're borrowing the status of the U of I, what do you do there? Are you an instructor? A TA? Do you run D-Hall? Answer the phone?
It doesn't actually involve (God forbid) educating anyone, does it?
14 - Lee Richards
#10:
"Moonbats" - When your argument is weak, attack the person.
"Bush is Hitler" - setting up a strawman, again when you have nothing else to offer.
(Of course, Hitler did have his Brown Shirts, and Bush does have his legion of Brown-Nosers.)
15 - Zedd
Nearly all of the people who were instrumental in prosecuting Libby were Republicans.
16 - Al Barger
Rufus rites "how someone can be guilty of obstruction without an underlying crime."
Have you spent any time in law enforcement? There's no way to tell if there's a crime to charge if there's no investigation. If that investigation is interfered with, it corrupts the whole process. I thought it was only the left that was soft on crime.
But before he ever grilled Libby to get him to (maybe) lie, the prosecutor knew that Plame was not in fact undercover or covered by the secrecy statute. Therefore, he knew there was no crime, but kept investigating anyway, with no possible prosecutable offense other than setting the perjury trap that Libby let himself get snagged on.
On top of which, the prosecutor knew who put out Plame's name, and that it wasn't from the vice-president's office. So he kept pursuing it why?
Fitzgerald's is only about a half rung above the infamous Nifong in his ridiculous abuse of prosecutorial power.
17 - John Bambenek
So let me get this straight... all the critics can attack me personally (including yourself) and that's legit... but when I do it, it proves I'm wrong.
This is why I usually filter comments to the trash, there simply is so few intelligent people who comment on politics articles here anymore... there are more than enough fever swamp types of all political favors to keep my junk filter going.
18 - Zedd
Al
You answer to the question "why" that you posed didn't make sense.
What do you mean?
19 - Dr X
Interfering with an investigation by lying to investigators is obstruction of justice. It is a crime whether or not an underlying crime is uncovered in the course of an investigation. It's quite something to listen to the whining of "law and order" Republicans when the law they cherish is applied to their own by a prosecutor from their own political party. As for the compaint about a harsh sentence coming from the party of lock 'em up and throw away the key, all I can say is cry me a river.
20 - John Bambenek
You'll note I didn't take a position on that issue, Dr. X. In fact, I've written elsewhere if he lied to the grand jury he should go down.
However, I'm in no position to evaluate the underlying crime issue.
That said, it does appear from all available evidence that there never should have been an investigation and that Fitzgerald engaged in a witch hunt even though he knew the facts from day one that there was no real crime.
21 - Joe
Dr Dreadful - It turns out that there was no underlying crime that has taken place...
Citation?
...Ambassador Wilson did in fact lie to Congress...
Citation?
...Valerie Plame was material in sending her husband on a junket to Niger even though he was not qualified to make the trip...
Citation?
These facts are beyond dispute.
Citation?
Cite this you fool, you have access to Google just like the rest of us - look it up. Plame was no 007, Wilson was full of shiite, and again, just do a search. Lazy hippie.
22 - Dan
It really is kind of scary that this crazy prosecution was allowed to continue.
No crime, No leak (from the whitehouse), and Joe Wilson and The New York Times lied in an attempt to discredit Bush.
Fact is Iraq did seek yellow cake from Nigeria. Just as intelligence suggested. Wilson's trip report actually "bolstered the case" in the eyes of the bi-partisan commission established to investigate.
It's alarmingly shameful that the "old media" deceives the public this way.
I would call what Plame, Wilson, and the New York Times does (on a regular basis) "treasonous". Though none are interested in seeing if a legal standard is met.
23 - Dan
Zed #18: "You answer to the question "why" that you posed didn't make sense.
What do you mean?"
I think he means that Fitzgerald knew before he began questioning Libby that the crime he was called in to investigate did not meet the legal standard for leaking the name of a "covert" agent. He also knew beforehand that the person who leaked the name to the media was Richard Armitage, who wasn't affiliated with the whitehouse at all.
It was a clear witch hunt all the way. Getting jurors in a district that is 90% anti-Bush and withholding the fact of Plames covert status from them helped fuel this legal disgrace. Plus the ridiculous heavy handed sentence.
24 - Alec
John - RE: The commutation will be one of the last chapters of a rather absurd episode in Washington politics over the last few years. It turns out that there was no underlying crime that has taken place.
This is a lie that will travel at the speed of light throughout the blogosphere. It's odd that none of the court challenges to Libby's conviction, nor any of the Libby support letters sent by Libby supporters have made the ridiculous claim that there was no underlying crime.
Bush's carefully worded speech announcing the commutation did not claim that there was no underlying crime, only that the jail sentence was too harsh.
It is preposterous, but predictable, that even though you and anyone else can easily search the Internet for details on the charges against Libby and their legal precedent, instead you fall back on the ludicrous spin that the Libby case was just a bunch of mush hyped up by hysterical "liberals." Preposterous and somewhat shameful.
RE: Ambassador Wilson did in fact lie to Congress and that Valerie Plame was material in sending her husband on a junket to Niger even though he was not qualified to make the trip. These facts are beyond dispute.
These facts are indeed in dispute. But even if this were true, it would be absolutely irrelevant to Libby's conviction. Unless, of course, you are following the party line of hebephrenic neo-con William Kristol and others who claim that the Ambassador Wilson affair was just typical Beltway Hardball, a political game that has nothing to do with truth, honor, or national security, and that the court case was nothing more than a case of sore losers -- Democrats and liberals -- not playing the game fairly.
So, John, the cynical insiders are playing you for a sucker by hoping that you will regurgitate their talking points for them. The question is, why do you go along with it?
This is a holiday weekend, so many of the talk radio and cable TV talking heads are away on vacation, so I am betting that the Bush Administration believes that they will have every aspect of this story under control when this longish July 4 holiday period is over.
But here is a wild card. In Southern California and elsewhere, there is a smoldering fire of resentment against the Bush Administration for not pardoning Ramos and Compean, two border patrol agents who were convicted of shooting a man who turned out to be a drug smuggler. The Bush Administration, through their spokes-hole Tony Snow, claimed that they were studying the issue and did not want to prematurely get involved in the case. But apparently they were studying hard day and night to find the right opportunity to make sure that Libby would not have to spend even a night in jail.
The contrast between the two cases highlights the fact that Bush cares more about cronies and loyalists than he does about the average American or the rule of law.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans could control the anger that many average voters felt over the immigration bill. The Libby commutation may end up being strike two.
25 - Dave Nalle
BriMan - don't flee so easily. If you look around BC you'll have no trouble finding articles just as skewed from the other perspective. Look for items by Realist, perhaps.
As for JB's assertions, he's right on some and wrong on others. He's probably correct on the absence of an underlying crime, but he's wrong about an obstruction charge being inappropriate. Libby could well have obstructed the determination that there was no crime by his behavior, and that's just as bad as covering up an actual crime.
I think Bush's reasoning was that Libby is an idiot and it's not nice to jail people just for that.
Dave