Bush and Libby - right or wrong?

Thursday, 5th July 2007

The Libby-Plame affair has been so farcical from the outset that I haven't been able to rouse much passion over the latest twist. All I'll add is that Alan Dershowitz probably won't be joining any demos denouncing the presidential intervention:

The court of appeals' judges, as well as the district court judge, wanted to force President Bush's hand. They didn't want to give him the luxury of being able to issue a pardon before the upcoming presidential election. Had Libby been allowed to be out on appeal, he would probably have remained free until after the election. It would then have been possible for President Bush to pardon him after the election but before he left office, as presidents often do during the lame duck hiatus.
To preclude that possibility, the judges denied Libby bail pending appeal. The president then acted politically. But the president's action -- whether right or wrong on its merits -- was well within his authority, since pardons are part of the political process, not the judicial process. What the judges did was also political, but that was entirely improper, because judges are not allowed to act politically. They do act politically, of course, as evidenced by the Supreme Court's disgracefully political decision in Bush v. Gore. But the fact that they do act politically does not make it right.