This is a typically incisive overview by Dan Froomkin of The Washington Post, which links to loads of people and organizations reacting to the president's actions.
We know, for instance, that Cheney was the first person to tell Libby about Plame's identity. We know that Cheney told Libby to leak Plame's identity to the New York Times in an attempt to discredit her husband, who had accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence. We know that Cheney wrote talking points that may have encouraged Libby and others to mention Plame to reporters. We know that Cheney once talked to Bush about Libby's assignment, and got permission from the president for Libby to leak hitherto classified information to the Times ...
All of this means that Bush's decision yesterday to commute Libby's prison sentence isn't just a matter of unequal justice. It is also a potentially self-serving and corrupt act ...
Bush's order grants Libby everything he needs in the short run while still keeping open the possibility of a pardon in the long run, as Bush heads out the door. And to law-and-order types, Bush's message may actually be more galling. For Bush to state he believed Libby to be innocent would at least have been defensible. Instead, what Bush is saying is that acknowledges the guilty verdict -- but, when it comes to his friends and colleagues, he just doesn't care what the justice system concluded was a fitting punishment.
He also raises some questions he thinks enterprising reporters should ask. These include:
What did Bush know and when did he know it? When did he find out that Karl Rove and Libby had both leaked Plame's identity? Before or after he vowed that any leakers would be fired? Did anyone lie to him about their role? Why didn't he fire them?
Answering these seems both necessary and appropriate, and it's really rather amazing that the White House has evaded answering them for so long.
Posted by armand at July 3, 2007 06:06 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics