"What is this, 'equal protection under the law' you keep talking about?"

A trick question?

"The perjury trap"

Shorter Michael Kinsley: It's the reporters' fault for listening to Libby.

Actually, I have no idea what Kinsley's point is; he seems to be equating the trap Clinton's pursuers put him in -- lie and expose himself to perjury charges, or tell the truth and embarrass his family because of a sexual indiscretion -- and the "trap" Libby found himself in -- lie and expose himself to perjury charges or tell the truth and expose his boss's campaign to destroy an administration critic.

Um, right, Michael. Very Broderesque.

But the op ed piece is written in Kinsley's breezy style and there are moments of great levity:

On Tuesday, President Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, who was convicted of lying to investigators about the C.I.A. leak case. Mr. Libby will escape prison, but he won’t get away scot-free either. He faces a fine of $250,000 and two years of probation, and if he was thinking of cashing in big on K Street like so many of his administration colleagues, he had better think again.

Well, except that the lobbying firms are not exclusively hiring Republican operatives anymore, I don't quite see what Kinsey bases this claim on. There's always plenty of opportunities for Republicans to "get back on their feet," whether they be criminals or just criminally stupid.

Partisan witch hunt

Yes, l'affaire Scooterre was, like, totally partisan. His own partisans.

A roundup of some excellent, and often funny, commentary on Bush's pre-pardon:

Von and scamnesty.

Doghouse Riley is unsurprised but wonders about that remaining 20 percent.

It's Clinton's fault.

The commutation, rather than a pardon, will ensure that Libby can no longer defend Marc Rich.

Excessive sentencing

In the eyes of the Deciders, I guess.

The dark arts

Glenn Greenwald pens another mighty essay, this time on the latest "Free Scooter" rant by Richard Cohen.

One could write media criticisms for the next several years and not come close to capturing the essence of our Beltway media the way Cohen did in this single paragraph:

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

That really is the central belief of our Beltway press, captured so brilliantly by Cohen in this perfect nutshell. When it comes to the behavior of our highest and most powerful government officials, our Beltway media preaches, "it is often best to keep the lights off." If that isn't the perfect motto for our bold, intrepid, hard-nosed political press, then nothing is.

That is the motto that should be inscribed at the top of Fred Hiatt's Editorial Page in pretty calligraphy. And let us acknowledge what a truly superb job they have been doing in keeping the lights off.

You really must read the whole thing. The past six years have been an intriguing glimpse into the collective mind of the Washington establishment, coinciding so nicely with the arrival of King George II. The mindset is one of elitism and clubishness. Serious men and women all, they see their duties and responsibilities to be crushing, but ones that must be done outside the sight of an ignorant public. That came through again and again in the "Free Scooter" letters to Judge Walton. Regardless of what we used to call "political affiliation (and we now realize that their real affiliation is to their own powerful kind)," the letter writers consistently referred to Libby's immense responsibility to keep America safe -- a responsibility so great that it far outweighted such niceties as telling the truth to FBI agents and Grand Juries.

Cohen now goes even further. In practicing "the dark art of politics," said practitioners should be permitted to practice without the nosy oversight of the rubes, the dirty fucking hippies, and "the antiwar left."

And, by the way, it wasn't the urging of the "liberal press, (especially The New York Times)," the investigation began at the urging of the CIA.

If Cohen isn't awarded a Golden Wanker for this, there truly is no justice. Mona Charen seconds my emotion.

Richard Cohen on Libby [Mona Charen]

The Post's Richard Cohen zeroes in on the hypocrisy of the press on the Libby matter (always a good topic). This is quite an impassioned argument for sparing Libby and coming from a lib should be praised.

Clutching at their pearls

The hero of the DC establishment will not pass go, nor collect $200.

It's going to be a noisy night on the cable shows tonight as the various monkeys hurl their feces about.

30 months for Libby

Time Magazine cries for Scooter.

When I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced Tuesday to a surprisingly long term of 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice, he became a victim of one of the most troubling aspects of federal sentencing laws — allowing harsher sentences for a crime that was never actually proven.

Huh?

The leak was the key issue for most Americans, the crux of an apparent White House campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who wrote a 2003 op-ed piece debunking WMD justifications for the Iraq war. But while outing a CIA agent can be illegal, neither Libby nor anyone else was actually charged with doing that to Plame. In fact, pre-trial maneuvering found the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, insisting that this was not a case about a leak and fighting defense requests for documents about whether Plame was ever a covert agent, a status that could have made intentionally leaking her identity a crime.

No, this was a case about lying to FBI agents and a Federal Grand Jury under oath and obstructing justice, Reynolds Holding admits, in an effort to discredit a critic. Please.

Also at Time, Ana Marie Cox also spills salty tears for this selfless civil servant.

Walton said that the severity of the sentence stemmed from his feeling that to not hold public officials *more* accountable would cause people to feel "government does not work for them" and "cause them to lose faith in the government."

As it stands, the one person today who knows the government does not work for him is Scooter Libby.

Again, let's remember what a jury of his peers decided.

The judge sentenced Libby three months after a federal jury found Cheney's one-time top aide guilty of four felonies for failing to tell the truth to a federal grand jury and the FBI about the disclosure of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Libby was convicted of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements to FBI agents, and one count of obstructing justice. He was acquitted of a fifth count.

It also doesn't seem likely that Judge Walton is going to find much "appealable," which might incline him more to let Libby go free pending appeal.

Which would mean that this steaming plate of Republican Red Meat -- a "Scooter" pardon -- is going to end up on preznit's desk. All because Cheney took umbrage at being called "liar" by Joe Wilson.

Now that's justice.