This is Inkwell’s third in a row prison item. But there is nothing funny about Scooter Libby’s sentence of nearly three years in prison for misremembering a conversation. IBD has a good summary on the current state of affairs:
“[M]ore than 150 public officials, academics and others who knew or worked with Libby – including Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and Marine Gen. Peter Pace – wrote letters on his behalf to Judge Reggie B. Walton. Some are quite moving, and we commend them to anyone interested in knowing the real Scooter Libby as opposed to the caricature drawn in the gloating mainstream media.
“Despite all that, Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months, saying, ‘People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of the nation in their hands, have a special obligation not to do anything that might create a problem.’
“With all due respect to Judge Walton, you go to prison in this country not for ‘creating a problem’ but for committing a crime. Our ‘special obligation’ is to obey the law. Period.
“As we’ve said, President Bush should pardon Libby, and the sooner the better. Politics shouldn’t determine the outcome of American justice. Libby was found guilty of covering up a crime that neither he nor anyone else was ever charged with committing. This seems to us a Kafkaesque perversion of our justice system.”
This is my opinion and not an official one by the IWF, but I think the president could inject a little spirit into dispirited Washington conservatives by pardoning Libby. It would be spunky-and right.