{"id":1322,"date":"2007-07-03T12:42:56","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T17:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/07\/03\/please-dont-let-him-do-what-he-wants\/"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:08:43","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:08:43","slug":"please-dont-let-him-do-what-he-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/07\/03\/please-dont-let-him-do-what-he-wants\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Don’t Let Him Do What He Wants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> For President, Libby Case Was a Test of Will<\/a><\/em> by Sheryl Stolberg in today’s New York Times.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> President Bush\u2019s decision to commute the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. was the act of a liberated man \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But the Libby case, featuring a loyal aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was the architect and chief defender of the administration\u2019s 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\u2019s penchant for secrecy.<\/p>\n

Even as he publicly declined to comment on the case, Mr. Bush had privately told his aides that he believed Mr. Libby\u2019s sentence, to 30 months in prison, was too harsh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he sincerely believed that Scooter was not shown proper justice,\u201d said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the administration. \u201cWe can get into the whole definition of justice versus mercy, but the point is the president didn\u2019t say justice wasn\u2019t done, he just didn\u2019t think the sentence was fair and therefore he showed mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Bush is not a man to dole out pardons lightly, and in offering a commutation \u2014 which left Mr. Libby\u2019s $250,000 fine intact \u2014 rather than a pardon, he chose not to use his Constitutional powers of clemency to offer Mr. Libby official forgiveness.<\/p>\n

The decision was closely held; only a few aides knew. The commutation seemed to catch Justice Department officials, and even some of Mr. Bush\u2019s closest aides, off guard. At the Justice Department, several senior officials were on their way out of the building shortly before 6 p.m. when news flashed on their Blackberries. They were floored.<\/p>\n

At the White House, Tony Snow, the press secretary, said he did not know who was consulted, or how the decision reached. Asked if Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, had been advising Mr. Bush on the matter, Mr. Snow said, \u201cMy guess is Fred did, but I\u2019m guessing with you right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Libby had close allies in the White House. The president\u2019s new counselor, Ed Gillespie, who started at the White House just four days ago, played a role in Mr. Libby\u2019s legal defense fund. Asked if he had spoken to Mr. Bush personally about Mr. Libby, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not going to go into any internal discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

One big question is what role, if any, Mr. Cheney played. Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney are extremely close \u2014 they often rode to work together before Mr. Libby\u2019s indictment forced him to resign as Mr. Cheney\u2019s chief of staff in October 2005 \u2014 and aides said the vice president viewed Mr. Libby\u2019s conviction as a tragedy.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bush comes at the decision a weakened leader, with his public approval ratings at historic lows for any president, his domestic agenda faltering on Capitol Hill and his aides facing subpoenas from the Democrats who control Congress. Those circumstances offer him a certain amount of freedom; as Mr. Black said, \u201cHe knows he\u2019s going to get hammered no matter what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, to administration critics, the commutation was a subversion of justice, an act of hypocrisy by a president who once vowed that anyone in his administration who broke the law would \u201cbe taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, called it a \u201cget- out-of-jail-free card.\u201d Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, called it \u201ca betrayal of trust of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But to the conservative believers who make up Mr. Bush\u2019s political base, the Libby case was a test of the president\u2019s political will. In the end, although he did not go so far as to pardon Mr. Libby, Mr. Bush apparently decided that it was a test he did not want to fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became an issue of character and courage, really,\u201d said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, who had argued in his magazine that if Mr. Bush was not going to pardon Mr. Libby, at least he should commute his sentence. \u201cI certainly think Bush did the right thing and I think he did something important for his presidency. I think conservatives would have lost respect for Bush if he had not commuted Libby\u2019s sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as Mr. Libby\u2019s defenders lobbied the White House intensely for a pardon, the deliberations were closely held. In fact, Mr. Bush only reached the decision on Monday, hours after a federal court ruled that Mr. Libby could not remain free while his case was on appeal.<\/p>\n

The decision was announced by the White House in a formal statement, just after Mr. Bush had returned to Washington from Kennebunkport, where he spent the weekend meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. In it, Mr. Bush said he had carefully weighed the arguments of Mr. Libby\u2019s critics and defenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect the jury\u2019s verdict,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the outset, Mr. Bush tried to keep his distance from the Libby case, which grew out of the investigation into who leaked the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson. He declined to talk about it, and until Monday had insisted that he would let the legal process run its course before considering a pardon.<\/p>\n

But aides said the judge in the case, Reggie B. Walton of the Federal District Court, pushed Mr. Bush into a decision when he ordered Mr. Libby to begin serving his time \u2014 a decision upheld Monday by a three-judge panel. So, unlike predecessors, including his father, who used their powers of clemency as they were leaving office, Mr. Bush was forced to act now. He has 18 months left to absorb the political risks, and benefits, of his decision.<\/p>\n

The Analysis:<\/strong> I’ve known lepers with more friends then George Bush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: For President, Libby Case Was a Test of Will by Sheryl Stolberg in today’s New York Times. The Text: President Bush\u2019s decision to commute the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. was the act of a liberated man \u2014 a leader who knows that, with 18 months left in the Oval Office and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nPlease Don't Let Him Do What He Wants - Prose Before Hos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Article: For President, Libby Case Was a Test of Will by Sheryl Stolberg in today's New York Times. 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