"'L.A.Times': Libby Sentence Was Far From 'Excessive' "
This editorial has a flawed basis. For regular people, the sentence was far from excessive. For the ruling elite, it was totally unacceptable.
Check this article out........it suggests Bush is a man of character ["test of will"]who had to hold his nose and do something "his will" detests. Who do these people think they are kidding?
For President, Libby Case Was a Test of Will
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: July 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 2 — President Bush’s decision to commute the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. was the act of a liberated man —a leader who knows that, with 18 months left in the Oval Office and only a dwindling band of conservatives still behind him, he might as well do what he wants.
The decision is a sharp departure for Mr. Bush. In determining whether to invoke his powers of clemency, the president typically relies on formal advice from lawyers at the Justice Department.
But the Libby case, featuring a loyal aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was the architect and chief defender of the administration’s most controversial foreign policy decision, the war in Iraq, was not just any clemency case. It came to symbolize an unpopular war and the administration’s penchant for secrecy. Even as he publicly declined to comment on the case, Mr. Bush had privately told his aides that he believed Mr. Libby’s sentence, to 30 months in prison, was too harsh.
“I think he sincerely believed that Scooter was not shown proper justice,” said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the administration. “We can get into the whole definition of justice versus mercy, but the point is the president didn’t say justice wasn’t done, he just didn’t think the sentence was fair and therefore he showed mercy.”
Mr. Bush is not a man to dole out pardons lightly, and in offering a commutation — which left Mr. Libby’s $250,000 fine intact — rather than a pardon, he chose not to use his Constitutional powers of clemency to offer Mr. Libby official forgiveness.
Edit.Yeah right.....he's saving the full pardon for the end of his term.
read more...........
nytimes.com |
