New W.H. Counsel Robert F. Bauer, HuffPo, 6/13/07: "The Progressive Case for a Libby Pardon" [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

The Progressive Case for a Libby Pardon

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-bauer/the-progressive-case-for-_b_51983.html

Until a very short while ago, few had heard of Scooter Libby. Today, still not a celebrity with the larger public, he carries on his shoulders the full weight of charges against the administration in the Wilson/Plame matter. Convicted of lying, he is not really reviled for that. It is his hand in a plot that he has been asked to answer for: a plot against war critics who have taken the administration to task for the mishandling, mismanagement and misrepresentation of war intelligence. But Libby, the only one in the law's grasp, is the only one to pay the price.

Bush's opposition has braced for a pardon and its rage at the prospect is building. To Bush's antagonists on left, a pardon would be only another act in the conspiracy -- a further cover-up, a way of getting away with it. But this is the entirely wrong way of seeing things. A pardon is just what Bush's opponents should want.

A pardon brings the president into the heart of the case. It compels him to do what he has so far managed to avoid: accept in some way responsibility for the conduct of his Administration in communicating with the public about national security and in its treatment of dissent. If the pardon would be politically explosive, then this is what the administration's critics, hungering for accountability, have been waiting for. The case against this government on the larger charge of abuse of power is diminished, made even laughable, by resolving into a 30-month sentence for an obscure figure named Libby.

From the beginning, the president has had his reasons for encouraging the Wilson/Plame case along, keeping a lofty distance, until it all came crashing down on Libby. Mr. Bush announced that he would tolerate no law-breaking; he wished nothing less than a full and independent investigation. His Deputy Attorney General selected a tough and independent prosecutor for the mission. Whatever wrongdoing occurred, however much of it was detected, it could have nothing to do with him. If there was criminal conduct, it was rogue criminal conduct; if it was a benefit to his administration, it was not a benefit he courted, and it was not provided in a manner he authorized.