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Imaginative Justice

Obama general counsel Robert F. Bauer at HuffPo makes the “Progressive Case for a Libby Pardon.” His argument is that this will finally make Bush complicit in the vast rightwing conspiracy that assisted Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in making themselves look foolish and blow her cover.

OK, he doesn’t exactly argue it that way. I helped him a little.  

Bauer notes that ”Libby, the only one in the law’s grasp, is the only one to pay the price,” but fails to observe that is because no one actually did anything wrong, except in this narrow case of a trumped-up he said/she said.  Instead, Bauer argues in the opposite direction:  

A presidential pardon is finally an intervention by the President, his emergence from behind the thick curtain he has dropped between him and these momentous events involving his government, his policy, his Vice President. By pardoning Libby, he acknowledges that Libby is not really the one to confront the administration’s accusers. Now the president, the true party in interest, would confront them, which is what his opponents have demanded all along.

Well, not exactly.  What Bush acknowledges with a pardon is that the guilty finding and the sentence are nonsense, and he dispenses with them.*

But if the President pardons Libby, and by this act makes the case his own, he will have picked up a portion of the cost. Libby will fall back, restored to obscurity. Bush will step forward and take the lead role. He will have to explain himself; he will have to answer questions.

I’ll say this. Bauer’s imaginative interpretation nicely caps the entire Wilson-Plame affair. It began with a cockamamie mission was first imagined to be sensible. Its results were then imagined to be accurate and useful. Wilson then imagined his own self-importance to be greater than it was. He imagined his public outburst to be in keeping with his obligations to his wife and the United States government. Crimes were then imagined to have been committed. And finally, justice is imagined to have been done.

Even lefties think Bauer’s idea is dumb. Including this one.  But even though they publicly revile him, Bauer may have correctly identified a secret desire of Bush bashers. That he will pardon Libby and give them something else to bash Bush about. 

*Of course, there is some truth to Bauer’s theory. Pardoning Libby would suggest that Bush does not consider his purported crime to be that big a deal, or worthy of punishment.  Here’s a list of crimes that former President Clinton did not consider to be a big deal, or worthy of punishment. The crimes in which, under the Bauer theory, Clinton is complicit and for which he must answer include cocaine distribution; income tax evasion; issuing worthless checks; mail fraud; money laundering; making  false statements; odometer rollback; perjury; more odometer rollback; distribution of methamphetamine; more cocaine distribution; more odometer rollback; illegally destroying U.S. mail, etc. 

The response of course is that those were mainly low-level dirtbag crimes, in keeping with Clinton’s largely low-level dirtbag associations and his largely low-level dirtbag presidency. Not a grand war crime, of the sort for which Bauers and so many others would like to see Bush and his administration made to pay. But the Iraq war is something on which Bush has repeatedly faced his accusers, and as recently as the last couple of weeks, has compelled them to back down. 

Wizbang: You missed a point, Crit.  I thought I made reference to that non-crime thing a couple of times, but have at it!  Wizbang further advocates commutation over pardon, to deprive the rabid left of the eating of their cake.  

Topics: crime, punishment

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:55 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2007

6 Responses to “Imaginative Justice”

1. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 12:59 am

   He will have to explain himself; he will have to answer questions.

   As you say, after Bubba, I mean, Slick Willy, oh, heck!, BILL CLINTON.

2. saltydog Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 1:13 am

   Nice try. A bit obvious, but what the hell. They will try to spin some kind of guilty gold out of whatever straw they’re given. If Bush were to juggle and walk on water at the same time, they’d just say he was trying to upstage Jesus.

   Isn’t this the bunch that revels in nuance? They are sadly lacking.

3. corndog Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 10:38 am

   “Here’s a list of crimes that former President Clinton did not consider to be a big deal, or worthy of punishment.”

   Well, no, that’s wrong. Nearly all of the people on this list of Clinton pardons have actually served or paid the fines (except for four who were given long sentences under mandatory drug sentencing and served part of their sentences, and for Marc Rich, a very complicated corporate tax case.) He’s not helping them get away with anything (with the possible exception of Marc Rich).

   When Libby gets out of prison, then Bush would not be complicit in his crime if he granted a pardon (if he was still president, which he will probably not be).

   The larger point here, though, is that the power to pardon, which the Supreme Court has said is “granted without limit” is too great a power to give a president. The Constitution should be amended to limit the power to pardon only to those cases in which the President does not have a direct interest. This would have blocked Clinton from pardoning Rich, and would block Bush from pardoning Libby.

4. The Thunder Run Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 11:02 am

   Web Reconnaissance for 06/14/2007

   A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.

5. RebeccaH Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 11:31 am

   The Constitution should be amended to limit the power to pardon only to those cases in which the President does not have a direct interest.

   And there’s that knee-jerk lefty reaction we all know and love: The Constitution doesn’t make us happy, so we need to f**k with it.

   Cornfool, our system was set up with three branches in order to provide checks and balances. You Constitution-bashers are constantly trying to unbalance at least one of them.

6. corndog Says:
   June 14th, 2007 at 11:33 am

   Rebeccah,

   Last I heard from you, you were trying to take away the 14th Amendment.

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