The Thunderous Silence on a Libby Pardon
Political columnist Dick Polman notes that to his knowledge not a single elected Republican has called on President Bush to pardon Scooter Libby.
Why, he asks, all the thunderous silence?
Unlike all the personal friends and editorial boards and defense lawyers and activists, the Republicans who have to face the voters in 2008 can’t afford to be blasé about the mood of the American electorate. And on virtually all matters relating to the war in Iraq, the mood does not bode well for Republican candidates. In the latest bipartisan poll sponsored by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, 69 percent of Americans say they are pessimistic about the war’s outcome; in the latest CBS-New York Times poll, Bush’s approaval rating on Iraq stands at 23 percent (that’s no typo). But most relevant to the Libby affair are the longstanding numbers showing that a majority believe the Bush team deliberately misled us into war.
More here.
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10 Responses to “The Thunderous Silence on a Libby Pardon”
The Libby pardon is a foregone conclusion. Why risk your political career by calling for something that will inevitably happen?
Or perhaps it’s only Democrats who want to see Libby pardoned, so they can feel smug in their continued damning of the Republican Party. It’s unbelievable all the cynical speculation being done about a pardon for Libby based on absolute zero, zilch, nada evidence that anybody in the Administration is even considering such a thing.
PatHMV:
The conservative media has been in full howl over the need for a pardon. That makes the absence of such calls from elected Republicans so conspicuous.
What evidence do you need that the administration is considering a pardon? Bush walking the halls of the White House late at night talking to the presidential portraits? Of course the pros and cons of a pardon are being discussed by the inner circle.
It’s not like WSJ, WeaklyStandard or AEI doesn’t have an inside tract to the Whitehouse. The “surge whitepaper” came from W’s desk, not some experts at AEI…..
WaPo reported yesterday that an intermediary met with WH officials midway through the trial to calm their fears about the defense team’s proposed strategy of calling Cheney and having Libby take the stand. Shortly afterwards, remember, Wells abandoned the strategy he had laid out in his opening statement.
Yes, this requires speculation, and I am speculating that a deal could have been worked out for the pardon by the intermediary. (Fred Thompson?)
The usual WH plan of attack during controversy is to have the president stay neutral- and get allies in the media to drum up outrage or support for their policies. This is no exception as the WSJ, WS, and columnists like Novak and Krauthammer go to bat for Libby’s eventual pardon. They are hoping to buffer the blow to the GOP’s chance of success in ’08, and prepare the country for the pardon. Its no longer if, but when.
Now that the verdict has come down, Libby has been deemed guilty of nothing worse than a “memory lapse”, has been declared victim of an over-zealous prosecutor, and the veridict itself, is of course, a gross miscarriage of justice. Complete spin cycle by the very conservative pundits who demanded justice because we must govern ourselves “by the rule of law” during Clinton’s impeachment for perjury.
Oh, please. Like there would be a pardon before the ’08 elections when Bush can wait until the day after or his last day in office.
Jim S- You may be right— but I bet Libby never serves any jail time.
If Liby had gotten a change of venue to Linden Texas all would be different. Just probation and timed served for the ‘white boy’…..
Yeah Rudi- its those Democrats in DC that did him in-all Bush-haters on that jury!
Seriously, the wingers are hitting the roof about how the jury was packed with enemies of the administration, but I live in the Dc area, and it took forever to seat the jury, for that very reason. The people they found seemed very fair, several even recommended that he be pardoned.
PatHMV It’s unbelievable all the cynical speculation being done about a pardon for Libby based on absolute zero, zilch, nada evidence that anybody in the Administration is even considering such a thing.
I think this qualifies as a Captain Reneau moment from Casablanca:
I am shocked, shocked, to discover there is gambling going on on these premises.