Sparing of Libby's jail term cast cloud over presidency

THE ISSUE President Bush has commuted the 30-month prison sentence of former vice-presidential aide Scooter Libby.

PRESIDENT Bush tried to pacify the Republican Party's conservative base while appeasing others by freeing convicted White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. from his prison sentence. He probably achieved neither purpose, spending any political capital remaining in the 18 months of his lame-duck presidency.

The president fashioned his commutation of the prison term as a compromise, short of the pardon sought by the most ardent conservative. He called the 30-month sentence "excessive" but eliminated its entirety instead of waiting for Libby to serve a term that might have seemed reasonable to him.

Bush said he will not rule out a pardon in the event that Libby's conviction is upheld on appeal, which is likely. That would have the effect of striking down a $250,000 fine, which supporters, who contributed millions of dollars to Libby's defense fund, will gladly pay. Ed Gillespie, who began work last week as the president's counselor, played a role in the defense fund.

Bush has been the most unforgiving president in modern times in granting pardons, relying on formal advice from the Justice Department. He did not ask for such advice in the Libby case. He once said that anyone in his administration who broke the law would "be taken care of." The commutation of Libby's prison time clarifies what that phrase meant -- the president values loyalty more than justice.

Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly was protecting his boss when he obstructed justice and lied to a grand jury and FBI agents investigating the disclosure of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame.

Cheney was angry at Plame's husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, about disclosure in a New York Times op-ed column asserting that the administration was wrong in claiming evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. Cheney had directed Libby to spread the word to reporters about Plame, suggesting that the CIA's assigning of Wilson to check out the uranium rumor was attributed to nepotism. Neither Cheney nor Libby testified in Libby's trial.

After a jury convicted Libby in March, Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a Republican U.S. attorney from Chicago, said, "There is a cloud over what the vice president did." The commutation extends that cloud over the Oval Office.

Opinion polls show that two-thirds of Americans supported Libby's prison sentence. Bush's approval ratings are likely to remain in the 30 percent range, keeping in the fold conservatives who were disappointed with the president's championing of immigration reform.