"Ya don't give me a pardon, ya putz, and I'll SING!!! Like a goddamned CANARY I'll SING!!! So gin up the paper and SIGN it, boy--OR ELSE!!!!"Hey, it's happened before...just read "Cap the Knife's" bio!!
WAPO had an interesting roundup of the rightwing take on this awhile back--they suggest that Monkey is so low in the polls anyway, that pardoning Scooter wouldn't hurt him, would make him seem more "decisive" or whatnot, and then go on to discuss the process.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060501275.html?hpid=topnewsIf Bush were to decide to pardon Libby, he would have to short-circuit the normal process. Under Justice Department guidelines, Libby would not qualify for a pardon. The guidelines require applicants to wait at least five years after being released from prison. The review process after the submission of an application typically can take two years before a decision is made. During more than six years in office, Bush has pardoned just 113 people, nearly a modern low, and never anyone who had not yet completed his sentence. He has commuted three sentences.
But the president's power to pardon federal crimes under Article II of the Constitution is essentially unrestricted, so he can ignore the guidelines. Other presidents who did so stirred furors, most prominently when Gerald R. Ford pardoned his Watergate-stained predecessor, Richard M. Nixon; when George H.W. Bush issued his Iran-contra pardons; and when Bill Clinton in his last hours in office pardoned financier Marc Rich, Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, his brother Roger Clinton and scores of others.
The current president has not ruled out a Libby pardon but tried to put off discussion of it. Informed of the sentence while traveling in Europe yesterday, Bush sent out a spokeswoman to say that he "felt terrible for the family" but would wait to see what happens when Walton holds a hearing next week on whether Libby goes to prison during his appeal. "The president has not intervened so far in this or any other criminal matter, and so he is going to decline to do so now as well," Dana Perino told reporters aboard Air Force One.