Bush´s Justice Problem: "Scooter" Libby vs. Genarlow Wilson

You know, many on the right wing have applauded Bush for commuting "Scooter" Libby's sentence so that he doesn´t have to spend any time in jail while he appeals his perjury conviction. The argument that is most often given is that Libby was subject to a blatant miscarriage of justice, even though the process itself worked as it should have.

Yet, most of these same folks are aware of the miscarriage of justice perpetrated in the case involving Genarlow Wilson, a Georgia honor-roll student who is behind bars for having had consensual oral sex with a 15-yrs-old girl when he was only 17-yrs-old himself. And yet, I don´t recall hearing the same people defending Bush´s commutation of the Libby sentence also demanding a Presidential pardon for this young guy who was clearly wronged. In fact, many conservatives recognized the injustice of this case, and generally criticized as flawed the system that produced this outcome, but nonetheless were content to allow the system to work the problem out for itself. There was no call, as far as I know, for Presidential override of the system like there was for the Libby case. In general, people were very deferential to the principle of the rule of law in this case, all the while criticizing the system as flawed.

The unfortunate perception that we are left with is that Libby, because he is a crony of Bush and because he happens to have a career in government, deserves this kind of Presidential intervention to rectify an injustice but that Genarlow Wilson, because he´s just a kid in Georgia without connections at the White House, somehow doesn´t. And even conservatives have picked up on this imbalance and seeming unfairness when they express disappointment that Bush commuted Libby´s sentence while Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, whom many conservatives consider to be law enforcement heros, remain, in their view, wrongly incarcerated.

The problem with the Bush commutation of Libby´s sentence is not that it is illegal or unconstitutional, but that it damages public confidence in the rule of law and reinforces the notion that the justice system serves the politically connected. And that damage is all the more profound when the originator of this damage is none other than the chief law enforcement officer of the country.

As Andrew Sullivan says:

One rule of law for connected neocons; another for the rest of the country. Get angrier. And get rid of them.

I couldn´t agree more.

Andrew Sullivan on Bush and the Rule of Law

Andrew Sullivan sees the Libby sentence commutation as just the latest in a long string of Bush Administration disdain for and abuse of the Rule of Law. Sullivan writes:

We now have a clear and simple illustration of the arrogance of this president. Tell the American people the core narrative of this monarchical presidency: this president believes he is above the law in wiretapping citizens with no court oversight; he has innovated an explosive use of signing statements to declare himself above the law on a bewildering array of other matters, large and small; he has unilaterally declared himself above American law, international law, and U.N. Treaty obligations in secretly authorizing torture; he has claimed the right to seize anyone in the United States, detain them indefinitely without trial and torture them; his vice-president refuses to abide by the law that mandates securing classified documents; and when a court of law finds a friend of the president's guilty, he commutes the sentence.

People with any shred of conscience know the game. And it ain't likely to play too well in Peoria. In fact, as Sullivan also points out, it already isn't.

The Bush Amnesty Plan ...

For I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that is. And it only took three short paragraphs on one single, solitary page! But, hey, it does make the light bulb go on, doesn't it? The Power of the Pardon. Hmmmmmm. If the regular legal process doesn't prevent the President from ramming amnesty down the throats of the American people for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, why not just apply it to all those 12-20 million "illegal" immigrants? Bush can get his "amnesty" for illegal immigrants after all!

UPDATE: Monday, July 2, 2007, 11:26PM -- Seriously, here's the situation in a nutshell. We have this thing called the Rule of Law. There is no better judicial system in the world than in the United States that preserves this Rule of Law. Or there was no better system. Libby was indicted, prosecuted, and convicted in strict accordance with this Rule of Law. Furthermore, if he, or anyone else, believes that there was a miscarraige of justice, then we have this thing called an appeals process that allows him, just like any citizen, to make absolutely sure that the Rule of Law applies. There are plenty of average joes who think they have gotten a raw deal from the judicial system (and some of them probably have). But their expectations for a Presidential Pardon are effectively zero. So, when Bush issues a Pardon in a case like this, for one of his cronies, which is his right, he diminishes the Rule of Law. But it's of a piece with the whole Bush Administration's politicization of the Judicial system in the U.S., so it shouldn't come as any surprise. Think of it like this: if the person facing jail time were Harry Reid's Chief of Staff under exactly the same charges, do you think Bush would be issuing a pardon? Any honest person would have to say, "No." For commuting Libby's sentence, Bush perhaps might get a bit of an uptick in his approval ratings from the relatively small percentage of the American public that constitutes the conservative base (but even that is questionable, because many of these folk are complaining that Bush didn't go the full nine yards and pardon Libby outright.) But I think that Bush, and by extension the GOP, will actually lose even more support among Rule of Law minded moderates and independents, and has just fired up the Democratic base even more. A smart Democratic presidential candidate will know how to massage this issue to keep the Democratic base fired up over the next year-and-a-half as well as to lure into the fold the moderates and independents wearying of Bush's ever more clear cavalier dismissiveness of the Rule of Law for purely political reasons. Mark my words. Watch how this plays in the polls over the next few weeks and into the 2008 election campaign. Watch particularly how it plays among the average, apolitical or moderately politically-engaged voter. These folks may not pay much attention to politics, but they certainly are attuned to the Rule of Law. And Bush did not do the GOP any favors with this commutation with regard to respect for the Rule of Law. You just watch. No matter how the conservative pundits spin this as a matter of rectifying an injustice, it's going to smack like preferential cronyism because it involves conservatives unravelling and undoing for conservatives what conservatives always generally tell folks shouldn't be unravelled and undone for anyone.