Pardon Scooter!

(Warning: this is not going to be a popular opinion.)

These are treacherous times and right now, no one knows that better than Scooter Libby. I am not in the habit of defending felons, but this troubling case calls for unconventional thinking. Scooter was Dick Cheney’s poodle, and now that he’s been slapped on the nose with a rolled-up verdict, he should be pardoned.

The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, said yesterday that unless he’s handed a smoking gun, the investigation is closed. That means that the only two people to see the inside of a jail in l'affaire de Plame will be Scooter and Judith Miller. Remember her? She was the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days looking at walls for refusing to reveal a confidential source—Scooter—and she hadn’t used the information. Nothing happened to Robert Novak, the reporter who wrote the article that outed Valerie Plame. Similarly, nothing will happen to Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, or The Decider.

Because of this trial, it’s now in the public record that the Bush administration has more backstabbers than Act III of Julius Caesar. It’s also clear that the Bush administration went to great lengths to hide the keys to the skeleton closet. But neither Cheney, Rove, or Armitage will ever look jurors in the eyes—they didn’t even bother to come to Scooter’s defense. Meanwhile, Scooter faces a maximum sentence of 25 years (he won’t get the maximum, of course) and can look forward to conjugal visits from Dick Cheney so that he can get screwed again.

It is not right to pardon someone who has been convicted of obstructing justice and perjury, but it is also not right for Scooter to be the only one of the devious criminals in Washington to be thrown to the sharks. There is chum in the surf, and the dorsal fins are visible. It's time to pull the poodle out of the water.

There's a chance that I. Lewis will squeal like a pig in exchange for less time in the big house.

If Scooter squeals now, he doesn't get a pardon.

Murky sources will pay his legal bills. Odd monies will find their ways into his hands to handle his bills and obligations, and come January of '09, he'll get a last-minute pardon.

Renege as they may on many obligations, the reactionaries will take care of this functionary in style, and they'll do it with the velvet-gloved fist of retaliation should he sway from his charted course. Details have long-since been worked out, so don't cry for poor Irving Libby.

and then no more than twelve to fifteen months. Come Christmas day 2008 he will receive his pardon from a grateful President, and then he will claim his six figure salary with Halliburton or one of Cheney's buddies other corporate entities.

The reason being is that his defense may a while to put together. Then the defense will put together reasons for delays. Eventually we will go to a new trial around September. Come November he Will be convicted again by a jury, just after the elections & GW will pardon him immediately as per the agreement he reached with Cheney not to squeal on him if he goes to trail. I agree he will have his job at Halliburton.