Stop Lecturing Us

I should have predicted this. The Scooter Libby Pardon Brigade is swinging into action, and the East Coast press corps is issuing lectures on why I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should be left high and dry.

However, the linked article is long on political warnings, and short on any sense of justice. The second paragraph talks about three pardons by former presidents, and how they were exercised "outside normal channels," while ignoring the extraordinary aspects of Libby's prosecution, such as being subpoenaed by the grand jury directly, and the outrageously biased jury pool. The president's power to pardon is designed precisely for such circumstances, where a "not guilty" verdict is impossible despite facts.

Another warning is against "crimes against the system of justice, such as Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice convictions." In this stunning admission, the Washington Times points out that Scooter Libby's crime was not dancing to the orders of Patrick Fitzgerald and the grand jury. It had nothing to do with revealing the oh-so-secret identity of super-spy Valerie Plame and her 007 husband, Joe Wilson, an act to which someone else had already admitted (and which was merely re-stating what everyone driving by the Pentagon already knew, anyway).

The problem is, how can a grand jury prosecute for false testimony, without an actual crime, or even a substantial accusation of a crime? No need for testimony, no raison d'être for the grand jury. That didn't matter to Fitzgerald; the objective was to tear down Dick Cheney by any means possible, including guilt by association. A "guilty" verdict on any charge would serve his purposes, whether for an actual crime, or for simply having a faulty recollection in the grand jury room.

The article wraps up with a reminder to President Bush of a pardon he granted in his early days as governor of Texas. The pardoned was later caught doing worse. Be that as it may, what does it have to do with the Scooter Libby case?

Nothing. Just like the article's vacuous case against Libby himself.

(H/T: Cox & Forkum)

Posted on Mar 13, 2007 at 4:03:34 AM EDT.