Op-Ed: Bush's Prison Pardon of 'Scooter' Libby Stinks (VIDEO)

So much for the old moral value that crime doesn't pay.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby

(SALEM, Ore.) - Lewis Libby is a real record holder. Scooter as he is known to his friends, is the first sitting White House official to be indicted on federal court charges in 130 years.

President George W. Bush

This assistant to the Vice President for national security affairs and former assistant to President George W. Bush, was convicted recently in four of five felony counts of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.

It all stemmed from his involvement in the CIA leak grand jury investigation into the "Plame affair".

But this criminal convict friend of George W. Bush got his post conviction walking papers Monday. Scooter spending two and a half years in the slammer was just too much for the President to bear, so he "commuted" the prison sentence.

Commuted is the word they are using for "pardon" it seems, since a pardon obviously sounds worse.

Former CIA Intelligence Agency officer Valerie (Plame) Wilson said the unmasking destroyed her career as a federal agent and charged that it was retribution over her husband's accusation that the administration manipulated intelligence to build a case for the Iraq war.

She held non-official cover (NOC) status prior to the public disclosure of her classified covert CIA identity in a syndicated American newspaper column.

Her identity was leaked publicly in a column published on July 14th 2003, by right wing columnist Robert Novak, who identified Mrs. Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction" named "Valerie Plame."

Wilson is a retired diplomat of the United States Foreign Service, who was posted to African nations and Iraq during the George H. W. Bush administration. Valerie's legal family name has been Wilson since her marriage to Joe in 1998.

The problems began about a week earlier, after an Op-Ed was published in the New York Times written by Joe Wilson.

The July 6th, 2003 Op-Ed: What I Didn't Find in Africa was critical of the George W. Bush administration.

Former CIA Operative Valerie (Plame) Wilson

Robert Novak's response to it in his column the next week's July 14th edition, identified Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a "CIA operative," and the possible sources of the leaks leading to Novak's disclosure have become subjects of extended controversy.

Mysteriously, the link to that Novak article quickly disappeared.

Those are the steps that slowly and painfully led to the indictment of Libby.

Reporter Judith Miller

In the path was the writer Judith Miller who refused to testify to the grand jury about a meeting she had with Libby on July 8th, 2003, during which they discussed Wilson's wife.

Miller went to the slammer on July 7th, 2005 for contempt of court. Although Libby signed a general waiver allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to release her individually from her ethical obligation as a journalist to protect him as her source.

Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify if given an individual waiver. Author Norman Pearlstine said, "Miller spent months in an orange jumpsuit for nothing. When she got a new lawyer, Robert Bennett, he found out she'd had a voluntary waiver from Libby -- in writing -- all along. She just hadn't wanted to accept it. ... 'Miller looked bad,' Pearlstine writes.

While most people expected Libby to be pardoned by George W. Bush, they expected it to come in the final days of his presidency. In an administration that many people believe operates above and out of reach of the law, there is no apparent need to appear as anything less.

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive," Bush said in a statement.

Here is an MSNBC breaking news report on the Libby case from Monday, courtesy of YouTube:

Video

Libby and his former boss Dick Cheney

It all comes down to this; if a man like Scooter Libby can betray the most highly vested trust of his nation, and serve no prison time for it, then what is to stop the next guy from doing it?

President Bush might have done all of us a favor had he considered that logic; he set a precedent, some would say furthered an existing understanding, that says "Betray your country and receive a Get out of Jail Free Card".

Libby was left with a quarter of a million dollar fine and a two year probation stint. Something tells me the 250k will be a snap, considering the friends Scooter has; people who he is very close to.

Conservative fans of Scooter don't need to worry. No time behind bars and he won't be treated like a probationer; not like a typical one, anyway. Bush talks about how "hard this has been on Libby's family." Maybe they should have all considered that before choosing to be behind so many dirty political dealings.

An apology to the Wilson family would seem far more appropriate.

This is a president who had no problem seeing retarded men sentenced to the death penalty while he was Texas Governor. He ran a "no pardon" kind of state.

Interestingly, others like Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney are also exhibiting a complete double standard when it comes to pardons, as shown in this clip:

Apologists always exist and the money this administration has at its disposal keeps a team of people ready at all times to take on any negative publicity.

For a lighter look at all of this, there is always an alternative called FOX News. Their take on Libby's commuted sentence is highly respectful of the President's decision.

FOX is not critical even though they are dealing with a clear case of a criminal being pardoned for four federal felonies; enough to send most of us to prison for the rest of our lives and then some.

Note that the FOX Network itself uses the term "pardon" to explain the President's action:

Reporter Tim King covering the war in Afghanistan for Oregon FOX-12 and Salem-News.com in the winter of 2007

Libby's actions have drawn the ire of politicians from both parties. We now live in a time when words like "disgraceful" are spewing forth from the mouths of elected officials as they near the end of a reign that has taken war and turmoil to all new levels.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called Libby's conviction "the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war."

So much for the old moral value that crime doesn't pay.

If you or I were to commit even a borderline offense involving national security we would be behind bars. This President pardons convicted felons as people still struggle to rebuild from Hurricane Katrina, and soldiers still die overseas.

Our nation will recall the name of Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the annals of history with the likes of Benedict Arnold, and most of us will always picture a Vespa when his name comes up.

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years experience as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today in addition to his roles as a war correspondent, reporter and photojournalist, he serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor and is available via email at: newsroom@salem-news.com