Report: Cheney lobbied Bush for Libby pardon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Daily News is reporting that "[i]n the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby -- and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn't budge."

Really. There's a shock. (Libby was the Waylon Smithers to Cheney's Mr. Burns, but with a touch of evil of his very own.)

And, yes, the whole incident, if true, makes Bush look good, at least relative to Cheney -- but, then, he always looked good relative to Cheney, didn't he?

But let's not make too much of this. Remember that Bush had already commuted the 30-months-in-prison part of Libby's sentence. At the time, Bush claimed that he was "[leaving] in place a harsh punishment for Libby," but that punishment was essentially reduced to the destruction of his public reputation, which is a punishment of sorts, though one that Libby had already brought upon himself with or without Bush's intervention. So while it's all good that Bush didn't let Libby entirely off the hook -- a full pardon would have exonerated him but would hardly have resurrected his reputation -- doing so didn't exactly carry the same weight it would have had Bush not intervened already to commute the most significant component of Libby's sentence.

Bush may have decided against a full pardon out of regard for his own historical reputation, that is, for his legacy. And, yes, there may well have been an intense disagreement between him and Cheney. But, in the end, Bush still proved that the Bushies and their loyalists, including Bush himself, do what they need to do to protect their own -- and to remain above the law. In that respect, over and against Cheney's last-ditch objections, Bush was nothing if not a good team player all along.