Oblivious to Obstruction
by shep
Dear Norman Ornstein,
I’m writing you as the e-mailer Diane Rehm referred to this morning when she asked whether you thought that the motive and timing of President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby's jail sentence might revolve around the threat he could pose to the Vice President (and, perhaps, the President himself) as his avenues for avoiding prison had just been exhausted. You dismissed the idea out-of-hand, without offering the slightest reason for why that couldn't be the case.
I may be no resident political scholar but my take is, the politics of satisfying the base aside, there is no other reasonable explanation for the timing of the commutation since it would have been weeks before Mr. Libby likely would have had to start serving his sentence. In the interim, however, Mr. Libby would have had significant motivation to offer testimony against the Vice President and, possibly, Mr. Bush himself.
Don’t take my word for it, here is what other commentators have had to say as reported by The Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin:
The New York Times: "Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell."Los Angeles Times: "The larger problem in commuting Libby's sentence is the message it sends to his unfortunately unindicted co-conspirator, Cheney.
Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon: "Bush's commutation of Libby's 30-month prison sentence for four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice was as politically necessary to hold his remaining hardcore base for the rest of his 18 months in office as it was politically damaging to his legacy and to the possibility of a Republican succession. It was also essential in order to sustain Libby's cover-up protecting Cheney and perhaps Bush himself."
Norman Pearlstine writes on Huffingtonpost.com: "Bush's rationale might have had some merit had Libby been convicted solely of perjury. If that were the case, one might argue that he was convicted of a 'process crime'. . .
"But that isn't what happened. In addition to perjury, Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice. That was the most important charge against him. Patrick Fitzgerald's summation to the jury and his sentencing recommendation made it clear that Libby's obstruction precluded him from ever determining whether his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney had broken the law and what role the White House had played in outing Plame. . . .
"[T]he commutation of Libby's sentence is a cover-up, pure and simple."
Marcy Wheeler blogs for the Guardian: "[T]he real effect of Bush's actions is to prevent Libby from revealing the truth about Bush's -- and vice president Cheney's -- own actions in the leak. By commuting Libby's sentence, Bush protected himself and his vice president from potential criminal exposure for their actions in the CIA Leak. As such, Libby's commutation is nothing short of another obstruction of justice.
Josh Marshall blogs: "The real offense here is not so much or not simply that the president has spared Scooter Libby the punishment that anyone else would have gotten for this crime (for what it's worth, I actually find the commutation more outrageous than a full pardon). The deeper offense is that the president has used his pardon power to shortcircuit the investigation of a crime to which he himself was quite likely a party, and to which, his vice president, who controls him, certainly was.
Joe Wilson on NPR: "Congress ought to conduct an investigation of whether or not the president himself is a participant in the obstruction of justice."
With all due respect, considering what Charles O. Jones wrote in your recent book about Mr. Bush’s governing style, the use of executive authority to cover-up and obstruct finding of wrongdoing is such a consistent and predictable facet of the modern CEO, it seems incredibly naïve to dismiss it without argument. Especially when considering the timing and the political danger of exposing everyone involved in the underlying crime – a White House conspiracy that exposed and destroyed an entire covert counter-proliferation operation in the CIA.
Sincerely,
[shep]