No Calm After Libby Verdict, With To and Fro on a Pardon

[cal04]

If some people imagined a verdict in the criminal trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. would calm the political passions surrounding his fate, they may have forgotten two words with a combustible history: presidential pardon.

The 11 jurors had barely pronounced Mr. Libby guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury on Tuesday when a new donnybrook broke out.

“Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct,” declared Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, taking a stance echoed by other Congressional Democrats, some editorial writers and bloggers on the left.

From the right came a Wednesday editorial in The Wall Street Journal, which thundered that “the time for a pardon is now,” a point of view shared by The Weekly Standard, National Review and conservative admirers and friends of Mr. Libby. Many of the calls for his pardon demanded immediate action, instead of a wait for appeals to wend their way through the courts.

(snip)
Kathleen Dean Moore, a philosophy professor at Oregon State University and the author of a book on pardons, said the most prominent recent pardons, including those of Iran-contra defendants and Mr. Rich, had been unjustified. A pardon for Mr. Libby would be inappropriate, Ms. Moore said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/washington/08pardon.html?hp

[AX10]

1. The pundits and rw noise machine will igore Moore's arguement.

[jaysunb]

2. an aside here...

We all think a new trial and an acquittal would be most desirable,” said Richard W. Carlson, a member of the defense fund’s board and vice chairman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute. “But ultimately, if it’s necessary, I would hope the president would pardon him.”

Tucker's pappy, proving, " the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."