Libby's Sentence Commuted
You'd have to be living under a rock not to have heard that President Bush used his Presidential powers to commute Scooter Libby's 30-month prison sentence.I've read in a few places where people are throwing around the "p" word, but this was no pardon. The president didn't excuse what Libby may or may not have done, he merely signalled that he felt that the sentence was excessive. He left the fine and the supervised release portions of the sentence intact.
And, considering the hand-slap that Sandy Berger got for stealing and destroying national documents of imperative importance, this still seems excessive, but at least it comes closer to being reasonable. The guy who actually let the cat out of the bag on Valerie Plame got off scot-free, so it seems ridiculous for Libby to go to jail.
I appreciate what the President did today. I think it was the right thing. He certainly had it in his power to do more, but this action says he respects the process and the verdict of the jury, but feels the punishment was excessive.
Of course, Democrats are still going to rip the President on charges of cronyism and abuse of power, but their grand poo-bah basically sold pardons like it was a White House yard sale and "everything must go", so they don't have a whole lot of credibility on this one in my book.
