The Rule of Law?
Scooter Skirts It
By John Wydra
WydeWorld.com
07/03/07
Those who have expressed shock that President George W. Bush has commuted the 30-month prison sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby have apparently not yet learned how this President operates, which is not just challenging the law, but operating way above and beyond it. Long ago Mr. Bush told us clearly and unequivocally by his actions that his pre-election words, “I believe in the rule of law” were above and beyond sincerity.
There are 3 central relevancies that, given the very nature of a Presidential pardon or in this case, commutation, are incontrovertible. The first is that the act of pardoning or commuting is a quid pro quo, a confirmation, another way of saying that the person receiving it did in fact do something wrong. You can’t pardon someone for something they did not do or have not been convicted of. No amount of arguing by supporters of the guilty one can alter that. In this case and in all the previous Presidential pardons, the act endorses what a court of law or a Congressional intervention concluded, that it was the correct decision in finding the individual guilty. For those who had any doubt that Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal, those doubts should have been quashed when President George H.W. Bush pardoned him in 1992 just as "Cap the Knife" was about to go on trial for lying to Congress about it.
While the first relevancy is a serious breach, of law subverted and justice not served, the 2nd is actually more troubling because it encourages wrong-doing in public office. If the restraint of possibly getting caught doing something illegal or unconstitutional is removed by the possibility of getting pardoned for it, for those high up in the chain of command the fear of accountability is null. It even erases the need to employ the Nuremberg defense which is “I was just following orders.” It also makes a mockery of an oath to abide by the tenets of the Constitution, empty words repeated for pure ceremony.
For different reasons, pretty much everyone believes that Scooter was a fall-guy. Many on the left firmly believe he was not the one who initiated the “outing” of Valerie Plame. It would be impossible to accept that someone like him, a facilitator, in his case for his boss the Vice President, could or would come up with the idea on his own to compromise a CIA asset and put unknown numbers of other assets and contacts in danger. Some on the right believe Scooter was railroaded by an over-zealous prosecutor and a misdirected judge. They persist in saying Scooter was serving his country, acting patriotically, not politically. They said the same thing about Weinberger. That rationale makes sense to an ideologue, but makes no sense if you turn events around. How loud do you think the right would have bellowed if someone in the administration of a Democratic president was caught compromising a CIA operative? Nothing short of disembowelment would have pleased them.
Funny how the same people who rant and rave about strictly enforcing the law against illegal immigrants, who bristle at the mere suggestion of amnesty for those illegal aliens, have no problem at all with embracing amnesty for one of their own operatives who also broke the law, who moreover, unlike most illegal immigrants, was actually caught, tried and convicted.
Scooter had his day in court. The law was applied and properly executed. Justice was meted out in his 30-month jail sentence. Some believed it was not enough. Now what do they think, now that justice has been severed, not served? Anyone already cynical about their government and their leaders have had their cynicism validated, as unchangeable as a Presidential pardon itself. It cannot be reversed by Congress, the Supreme Court, by no one.
The why is not complicated. Bush and Cheney did not want to run the risk of dealing with another kiss-and-tell book, ala “Against All Enemies” by former Bush Counterterrorism Advisor, Richard A. Clarke, or “The Price Of Loyalty” as told by former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, not to mention the severe criticism leveled by 8 former U.S. Military Generals on the conduct of the Iraq War. The thought of Scooter in repose at a federal country club prison, going up the Cheney-of-command in chapter and verse was certainly a fear-based stimulus enough to give him a get-out-of-jail card. Not to worry Scooter, just pay your fine, and we’ll see if we can stage a fund raiser to cover that too.
The 3rd relevancy? It too is a confirmation. In a 1977 interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon, himself a beneficiary of a pardon from Gerald Ford, famously said; “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” His political descendant, George W. Bush, lives by those words of “wisdom.” He just proved it…again.
John Wydra