Opinion
Our view on Justice and the White House: Libby uproar is hypocritical, but it doesn't pardon Bush

Three days into the uproar over President Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence for perjury, much of the reaction is as hypocritical as it is unenlightening.

Libby: No prison.

Many of the Democrats proclaiming outrage were muted in 2001 when Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a fugitive from justice, on his way out of the White House. Now, they've scheduled congressional hearings of dubious value.

Many Republicans who sought Clinton's impeachment for lying under oath in a civil case about having sex with an intern now think zero days in prison is just right for Libby, who lied to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity while he was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.

Both sides are long on sound bites and short on ethical consistency. So here's a shot at measuring Bush's decision by more neutral standards.

The basic facts are these: Libby was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. By any measure, both are serious crimes. If people were allowed to lie to prosecutors and juries, investigating crimes would become impossible.

Bush, in a nod to that reality, elected not to pardon Libby, as many of his supporters had urged. Libby's felony conviction stands, along with a $250,000 fine and two years probation. But he will serve no time because Bush found prison to be excessive punishment. Given Libby's connections, the fine will be paid easily and he'll have plenty of career options, though he may be disbarred and the stain of being a felon will linger.

One way of assessing that outcome is to measure it against similar cases. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the average sentence for perjury and similar crimes in 2006 was 17 months. By that standard, 30 months seems harsh, but no time in jail is plainly lenient.

Another yardstick is Bush's previous acts of clemency. Bush has granted just 113 pardons, less than any modern president. He has commuted sentences only three other times, all when defendants had served substantial terms.

None of the commutations involved perjury or obstruction of justice, but the administration has a different sort of record on at least one such case.

Victor Rita, a retired Marine and former government investigator, was sentenced to 33 months on the same charges. He had lied to a grand jury investigating illegal gun sales. Like Libby, he wasn't charged with a crime that led to the perjury. Rita appealed, and far from commuting the sentence, the administration argued all the way to the Supreme Court that it was reasonable. Rita lost.

For broader context, another case to consider is that of Weldon Angelos, a first-time offender who was sentenced in 2004 to 55 years in prison for a small-time marijuana and gun conviction. U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, who imposed the mandatory sentence, called it "unjust, cruel and even irrational." Cassell, a Bush appointee and no softie on crime, took the rare step of asking Bush to commute Angelos' sentence to 18 years. So far, that hasn't happened.

Is Libby a threat to the public who needs to be confined? Obviously not. Is his attempt to con a grand jury in order to protect an administration unique? Sadly, that also is not the case, as the Clinton and Nixon administrations so amply proved.

The important question in the Libby case was whether Bush could rise above that sickening precedent.

He failed, and the message that's left is unmistakable: If you stand in the way of justice, you can get off easy if you have a friend in the White House.


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Conservatism is a pale horse, and the riders should be called DEATH.