BUSH'S TRIAL The trouble with the progressive case for pardoning Libby that Ezra has endorsed is twofold. First, all Bush has to do is commute Libby's prison sentence, which, as I understand it, would allow Libby's appeals to go forward, providing Bush with an ongoing excuse to not address the matter publicly while Libby pursues legal vindication. Second, the premise of the progressive case is wrong. There was plenty of evidence produced at Libby's trial (now conveniently available for your reading pleasure in this volume documenting the trial that I helped Murray Waas edit) of Bush's involvement in the blowing of Plame's cover from beginning to end.
Beginning: In June 2003, right after disastrous appearances on the Sunday talk shows by Condoleezza Rice, Bush himself raised questions about the 16 words controversy and Joe Wilson's criticisms; the very same day, the OVP swung into action on the matter, learning within days that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Middle: In July 2003, as Cheney and Libby prepared for Libby's conversation with Judith Miller that Fitzgerald called the heart of the case, Cheney went to Bush to get authorization for Libby to leak classified information to the press. Libby denied that that information included Plame's CIA identity, but of course the trial showed that he did in fact leak Plame's identity to Miller. He was acting at Cheney's direction when that happened. So what did Cheney and Bush discuss when Cheney went to get permission for Libby to leak to Miller? End: During legal wrangling in the trial, the defense claimed that in fall 2003, Bush himself personally intervened to get the White House to publicly and, as it turned out, falsely clear Libby of involvement in the leaking of Plame's identity, as it had publicly and falsely cleared Karl Rove.
Bush has managed to remain aloof from the matter not for lack of evidence tying him to it; he's done it through successfully stonewalling the press. The evidence is there. It's clear what Bush should be asked. But with a commutation, all he has to do is stonewall the press' questions for a couple of days and they will probably let it go as they have in the past. Until the press -- or, needless to say, Congress - asks sharp and persistent questions about the evidence of his role, and until it determines how to make Bush answer, he will continue to skate away from it, leaving a telling but incomplete historical record.
--Jeff Lomonaco
