Sherry Chandler

Commuted

George W. Bush executed more people than any other Texas governor.

He is reported to have laughed at Karla Faye Tucker when she begged for her life on the grounds of her new-found Christian faith. A faith that supposedly sustains Bush, keeps him serene in the face of all his failures, because he knows he’s right.

George W. Bush thinks he has the right to detain any American citizen without habeas corpus for any length of time. He thinks he has the right to torture them. All this on the grounds that they are enemies of the state.

But he thinks that 30 months in a white-collar prison is too stern a sentence for Scooter Libby.

As Josh Marshall points out:

There is a conceivable argument — a very poor one but a conceivable one — for pardoning Scooter Libby, presumably on the argument that the entire prosecution was political and thus illegitimate. But what conceivable argument does the president have for micromanaging the sentence? To decide that the conviction is appropriate, that probation is appropriate, that a substantial fine is appropriate — just no prison sentence.

Update: From the NYTimes of July 4, the unintended consequences:

Given the administration’s tough stand on sentencing, the president’s arguments left experts in sentencing law scratching their heads.

“The Bush administration, in some sense following the leads of three previous administrations, has repeatedly supported a federal sentencing system that is distinctly disrespectful of the very arguments that Bush has put forward in cutting Libby a break,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who writes the blog Sentencing Law and Policy.

Perhaps inadvertently, Mr. Bush’s decision to grant a commutation rather than an outright pardon has started a national conversation about sentencing generally.

“By saying that the sentence was excessive, I wonder if he understood the ramifications of saying that,” said Ellen S. Podgor, who teaches criminal law at Stetson University in St. Petersburg, Fla. “This is opening up a can of worms about federal sentencing.”

And this from Hunter at the Daily Kos:

But after it all, the consequences of the law were considered too much. Nobody expects a mere Scooter Libby to have the ruggedness of a Martha Stewart, the toughened pastry chef and craftsperson

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