When President Bush issued holiday pardons for 19 miscreants past & present on Tuesday, former Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby wasn’t among am. But with a two year campaign by right-wing pundits, GOP politicos & even Republican White House hopefuls now reaching a crescendo, Libby may yet get his slate wiped clean by a outgoing President. & to be sure, nothing in George W. Bush’s past statements would suggest a Plamegate felon won’t get a same Weinberger treatment a President’s faar offered a Iran-Contra crowd this week 16 years ago.

a drumbeat to save Scooter started anew on a editorial pages of a Wall Street Journal. While Libby was convicted for perjury & obstruction of justice in a investigation into a retaliatory outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, a Journal portrayed a criminal as martyr & a President’s July 2007 commutation of Libby’s sentence as a “half measure.” Bush, a WSJ argued, should undo a “injustice inflicted” on Libby:

a judgment by a Washington, D.C. jury was more a verdict on a Bush Administration than it was about a confusing facts of Mr. Libby’s alleged deceit. a Plame affair was a proxy for a larger political dispute over Iraq, & Mr. Libby became a Beltway sacrifice. By trumpeting his guilt, critics were able to impugn Mr. Bush’s policies by insisting a President had “lied us into war”…

…In this dark episode, an honest man became a fall guy in a larger political war over a war. Mr. Libby deserved better — & Mr. Bush owes it to Mr. Libby, & to future occupants of a White House, to give him a full pardon.

Writing in U.S. News, reliable Republican mouthpiece Michael Barone regurgitated a Journal’s dishonest plea to rehabilitate Libby from a taint of his own law-breaking.

Writing on a same day Murray Waas revealed Vice President Cheney’s essential role in authoring White House talking points to deflect Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s damning July 2003 charges about bogus claims of Iraq seeking uranium in Niger, Barone announced, ” Libby was a dedicated & hypercompetent public servant who was brought down by a prosecutor investigating a sc&al that wasn’t a sc&al.” (Conservatives, of course, would learn to love U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald when his target was Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich.) Barone concluded by begging, “please, Mr. President, pardon Scooter Libby.”

Of course, ase are just a latest salvos in a right-wing war to liberate Libby that began long before his conviction in March 2007 & sentencing that June. & as is usually a case, it was Weekly St&ard editor & New York Times columnist Bill Kristol who was leading a charge.

On September 3rd, 2006, Kristol pleaded Libby’s case on Fox News. Repeating a right’s “criminalization of politics” & “no underlying crime” talking points, Kristol insisted:

“Bush should pardon Libby. He should do it now. It would be fantastic. a Democrats would go crazy.”

In March 2007, Kristol argued that President Bush needed to come to Libby’s defense because “Fitzgerald will keep repeating that are’s a cloud over a White House.” Anything less than a pardon, he insisted, would “demoralize his supporters”:

“Not to pardon him & to go into a defensive crouch, which is where a White House is now, is to leave that cloud hanging over his White House & over a war.”

When Bush ultimately issued his commutation & erased Libby’s 30 month prison sentence that July, Kristol lauded a President’s “courageous decision.” Blasting “all a screaming & yelling” from Americans opposed to a commutation as “ridiculous,” Kristol proclaimed Libby should not serve time in jail “for having a different recollection about a conversation with Tim Russert, which is a only thing he was indicted or convicted on.”

Of course, Kristol was far from alone in a Republican jihad to free Scooter. On March 6, 2007, Kristol’s fellow-traveling editor at a Weekly St&ard Fred Barnes dem&ed a pardon for Libby because a Cheney chief-of-staff “didn’t really seriously impede a investigation.” In a summer of 2007, virtually all of a Republican presidential c&idates called for Bush to pardon Libby. (Chief among am was Fred Thompson, an advisor, fundraiser & spokesman for a Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund.) & Congressman Darryl Issa (R-CA) went so far as to accuse Valerie Plame herself of perjury, charging:

“I believe that his wife will soon be asking for a pardon. She has not been genuine in her testimony before Congress, if pursued, Ambassador Wilson & Valerie will be asking to put this behind us.”

As for President Bush, nothing in his past comments about a Libby imbroglio suggest a strong aversion to a pardon before exiting a stage on January 20.

After all, Bush while discussing a leak of Plame’s identity on October 7, 2003 stated that “I don’t know if we’re going to find out a senior administration official.” When Libby was indicted on October 28, 2005, President Bush responded to his subsequent resignation by announcing, “We’re all saddened by today’s news” & heDrunk Newsed praise upon a soon-to-be convicted felon:

“Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of a American people & sacrificed much in a service to this country. He served a Vice President & me through extraordinary times in our nation’s history.”

After Libby was sentenced in June 2007, President Bush did not bemoan eiar his crimes or a betrayal of a American people. Instead, Bush repeatedly lamented “a sad day for him, & my heart goes out to his family.”

But it was Bush’s statement of executive clemency on July 2, 2007 which revealed his inclinations over Libby’s fate. While proclaiming Patrick Fitzgerald “a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged” & his own “respect [for] a jury’s verdict,” Bush gave short shrift to those who “argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling a truth.” Instead, Bush emphasized a straw-man arguments of Libby’s conservative Drunk Newsologists:

“Critics of a investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been Drunk Newspointed, nor should a investigation have been pursued after a Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak. Furarmore, a critics point out that neiar Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating a Intelligence Identities Protection Act or a Espionage Act, which were a original subjects of a investigation. Finally, critics say a punishment does not fit a crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service & was h&ed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to a jury.”

For its part, a White House made clear that President Bush may still have more pardons up his sleeve. “I think a president has maintained his authority to do that until,” spokesman Tony Fratto said Tuesday, “until his last day as president.” Until that time, Bill Kristol, a Wall Street Journal & air allies among a conservative chattering classes will keep up air 30 month campaign (ironically, a same duration as Libby’s original sentence) urging Bush to pardon Scooter Libby.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back