Bush's new-found liberalism

I'd been trying to come up with explanations George Bush could use for a pardon or commutation for Scooter Libby, but I'd largely convinced myself that such a thing was implausible.

This isn't to say that granting Libby some leniency wouldn't have been the right thing to do, if done right. After all, it's widely assumed that at least Dick Cheney, if not Bush himself, was really behind Libby's leaking and lying, and it's not very responsible to make somebody else take the fall for one's own misdeeds. There was a responsible, even honorable, path that Bush and Cheney could have taken here -- to announce that they had been responsible for the crimes Libby had been convicted of, that they and not Libby should face the consequences, and then to pardon Libby and do whatever it is that a President is supposed to do after admitting to a felony. But when has either Bush or Cheney acted honorably or responsibly? The scenario seemed thoroughly implausible, which meant that the only scenario that didn't involve Libby going to jail would have been for Bush to announce that the law did not apply to members of his administration. He's hardly hidden that view in the past, but a pardon of Libby would have been just too blatant to ignore.

Or not. Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence made no mention of responsibility. It instead focused on the loss to Libby's reputation that being convicted caused, the severity of even the remaining punishment involving fines and probation, and the suffering of Libby's wife and children. Suddenly, Bush is sounding like the sort of liberal he usually disdains. America's poorer neighborhoods are full of children suffering because their parents are in prison. America's prisons are full of people who could argue that they, too, have suffered greatly from the loss of their reputations, and have been punished enough. Bush, so far, has seemed pretty insensitive to such issues.

Now the real test begins. Bush has a bit more than 18 months left in office. During that time, he can either show his new-found commitment to saving the children of America's convicts from their parents' excessive punishment, or not.