Earlier this month, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to thirty months in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine after he was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators. On Thursday, Federal Judge Reggie B. Walton said he will not delay the sentence, which means Libby could be in prison within weeks.
Prior to sentencing, various individuals sent several hundred pages of letters to the judge on Libby's behalf. Most made personal pleas for leniency by vouching for his good character. They are worth looking over one more time. Notable public figures like Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger provide the star power, but the real treasures often come from slightly less well-known sources, addressing issues one might perhaps characterize as tangential to the legal issues at hand. The testimonials did not seem to have much effect on the judge -- but just see if you, dear reader, can make it through these descriptions without reassessing your views about Libby and the significance of that whole outing-a-CIA brouhaha.
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Personal Demeanor and Good Acts
Edie R. Albert declares that Libby "never raised his voice," and "was not the type of person who sought praise for his good deeds." Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, calls him "not the least bit anti-social, but rather is kind, generous, and gently convivial." Amy H. Swonger writes, "It was not unlike him to crack a joke to lighten the mood of a tense situation." Megan E. McGinn, deputy press secretary for Vice President Cheney, concurs that Libby's dark side barely reached a shade of pale gray: "[T]he only time I ever saw Scooter get upset was when a picture frame of his kids fell off his desk and broke. He let out a silent 'damn' and asked his assistant if she wouldn't mind seeing if she could get it fixed as it was his 'favorite picture.'"
Peter W. Morgan further notes Libby's caring side: "[O]n a mountain biking trip we took with our wives, I was struck by the detail of Scooter's repeatedly circling back, smiling, to see if some straggling member of our group needed help. True, it was a relatively small thing. Yet, it seemed to me to capture both Scooter's sensitivity and joy in serving others -- always circling back to make sure that there was nothing else he could do to help."
Meanwhile, Georgetown University linguist Deborah Tannen offers exhibits A and B for Libby's good neighborliness: "I appeared on his doorstep and asked to borrow a tool that is needed to turn a valve that regulates our septic field. Scooter not only graciously produced the tool; he walked with me to the valve and did the job himself. When he spied my husband laboring to dig our car out of a pile of snow, without saying a word, Libby retrieved a shovel and began working alongside my husband to dig out the car."
Hobbies and Leisure-Time Activities
Libby also does interesting things in his free time. Emilio Cividanes knew Libby as "a fellow martial arts enthusiast" who "was one of only ten friends who attended my bachelor party at a local steakhouse in 1994." Libby, he continues, "is a man of simple tastes (he prefers jeans to suits, and contemplation to celebration)." As his neighbor Carol Harris recollects, "Scooter very kindly came to my 'Westminster Mothers' book club, as our only guest speaker over eight years. All of the mothers appreciated his thoughtfulness."
Dr. Diane and Andrew Kane, meanwhile, thought to let Judge Walton know that Libby "plays a mean game of Botticelli (a version of Twenty Questions)."
Dr. Stephen G. Harrison played football and softball with Libby ("depending on the season") for 15 years. Libby's "garments," he assures the judge, "are generally among the dirtiest when our games are over." W. Bruce Weinrod also played football with Libby, stating, "Someone once said that you can lean [sic] a lot about a person and his character from sports. From the years playing football with Scooter, I learned important things about his character." For example, "While most players (including myself) would argue and seek advantage on close calls (with no referees we of course made our own calls), Scooter would unfailingly refrain from arguments, conceding that the other side could have actually gotten the call right, and tried to find a middle ground between the two sides." David F. Epstein agrees: "The weekly softball game is not a bad laboratory in showing human virtues and vices, and Scooter was always a man of exemplary sportsmanship and honesty." Brian E. Doll remembers how he "sat through many soccer games and basketball games with Scooter over the years watching our sons compete … In all this time, I never heard Scooter utter an unkind word about anybody, even though the questionable officiating at our sons' sporting events typically provided a golden opportunity to vent."
Libby and the Children
Of course, Libby loves his kids. Joseph Bottum, First Things editor, remembers, "It was always hard to get him out in the evening: He refused to turn the children over to the babysitter until he'd read them to sleep, which made it 9:00 before he could join us …" Emily Ashman recollects, "I know he attends their soccer games even when they are held out of town."
In fact, Libby's good with everybody's kids. Scott Ramminger calls him "someone I unfailingly trust my children with." Republican political strategist Mary Matalin writes -- in a letter also signed by her husband, James Carville -- that Libby went out his way to provide Halloween festivities to the Cheney grandchildren once. She also mentions how her own daughters call him "Mr. Scooter" and simply cannot attribute "the facts" of the court case to that person. "What further justice could be served by additional devastation to them and the many other children who love Scooter?"
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And so on. As we know, with the judge having been unpersuaded, Libby's fate now rests in the hands of the president. The case for a pardon, it seems clear from the material sampled above, is strong. Indeed, surely the message ought to be conveyed to George W. Bush in the strongest possible terms: "Mr. Scooter" musn't disappoint the children who love him, nor the lawyer who knows that the fact that he attended his bachelor party once means he deserves some leniency. Mr. President: The ball is in your court.
