"Even as he publicly declined to comment on the case," reports The New York Times, "Mr. Bush had privately told his aides that he believed Mr. Libby’s sentence, to 30 months in prison, was too harsh."
As we discuss Bush's acute empathy for poor Scooter Libby, I also want to remind folks of George W. Bush's callous mockery of Karla Faye Tucker -- a women condemned to death for a grisly murder, but who'd found God in prison, married her chaplain, and reformed herself as fully as anyone could have asked. This religious conversion should have been especially poignant to Bush, a born-again evangelical who believes in God's saving grace. He certainly hid his empathy well. From a 2000 Talk magazine profile of the President:
While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.
'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'
I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.
'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.'
A reporter should ask Bush when his job ceased being to enforce the law and became second-guessing it.
