Bush exercises fuzzy justice in Libby case

The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON -- President Bush owes Lil' Kim and Martha Stewart an apology.

The rapper Kimberly Denise Jones spent 10 months in prison for lying to a grand jury.

The business and media star Stewart served five months in federal prison for four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators.

But fellow perjurer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, won't serve a day of the 30-month sentence he received for lying to a federal grand jury, thanks to the selectively kind heart of President Bush.

If you listen to some sympathizers on the political right, Mr. Libby should have received a full pardon. It's amusing to watch staunch, hang-'em-high conservative editorial pages and presidential candidates go all squishy when one of their own has been convicted.

Mr. Bush stood firm, sort of. Instead of a pardon, he let stand Mr. Libby's two years of probation and $250,000 fine for lying to federal investigators in the investigation of the 2003 disclosure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

That's Mr. Bush's idea of a compromise. He called Mr. Libby's sentence "excessive."

Maybe he should also consider a similar commutation - or an apology - to Victor Rita, a North Carolinian whose very similar sentence was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court less than two weeks earlier.

Mr. Rita was sentenced to 33 months in prison for making two false statements to a grand jury about a parts kit he had purchased, allegedly to make an illegal machine gun.

Mr. Rita is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars with no prior criminal history. Seeking a reduced sentence, Mr. Rita's lawyers argued that he was in poor health, had performed valuable government service and could be in physical danger of reprisals in prison for criminal justice work he had performed in his government job. But the court upheld Mr. Rita's sentence in an 8-1 decision, ruling that it was "presumptively reasonable" within federal sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing is a remarkably arbitrary decision. How do you define justice? In days? Months? A lifetime? Cash? With as many deep-pocket contributors as Mr. Libby has funneling money into his defense fund, it is doubtful that Mr. Libby will pay a penny out of his own pocket.

In the Libby case, what about other big fish, such as presidential adviser Karl Rove, who also leaked Ms. Plame's identity to reporters and got off scot-free?

Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald decided that he could not build a winnable case against Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby for knowingly revealing a CIA agent's identity. But that does not reduce the seriousness of lying to a grand jury. Perjury is not a petty offense. Truthful testimony is the bulwark of our justice system.

Mr. Bush appears to understand that. If he has any reason to think Mr. Libby was railroaded, he should give him a full pardon. People appreciate a president who stands on principles, not just politics. After all, this is the president who dubbed his 2000 campaign jet "Accountability One." That slogan sounded like a little dig at the fuzzy ethics of President Bill Clinton.

Early in the Plame investigation, Mr. Bush also vowed to oust anyone who took part in revealing Ms. Plame's identity. Yet Mr. Rove, who disclosed information about Ms. Plame to two reporters, kept his job, and Mr. Libby left the Bush administration only after his indictment in 2005.

Look who's getting all fuzzy now.

Clarence Page is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His column appears Tuesdays and Fridays in The Sun. His e-mail is cptime@aol.com.

Kathleen Parker's column will return Monday.

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