Kristol says why Libby should be pardoned. "It would drive Democrats crazy".

Whilst being interviewed recently about the Scooter Libby trial, President Bush said, "I'm pretty much going to stay out of it".

To most of us this would seem like a very sensible thing for Bush to say. After all the case involves a member of his own administration who appears to have obstructed a criminal investigation into a crime which Bush thought so serious that he said any person found guilty of it would no longer serve in his administration.

However, this rather sensible stance by Bush has been questioned by that right wing guru - and the man with his finger on the pulse of Iraq - William Kristol. Kristol argues in The Weekly Standard that, not only should Bush pardon Libby - a theme that many on the right have been echoing recently - but that Bush should intervene immediately and pardon Libby before the appeals process has even begun.

His "reasoning", if we are able to pretend that Kristol ever employs such a thing, is that, "There was no underlying crime and Libby was not responsible for the appearance of Valerie Plame's name in Robert Novak's column."

Of course, I'm sure it is not lost on even a mind as partisan as Kristol's that Libby was not charged with the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity, he was charged with impeding an investigation into that disclosure. Surely, even in Kristol's world, perjury and obstruction of the course of justice remain crimes? They certainly were serious crimes to Kristol when they were committed by Bill Clinton. Indeed, in the days of the investigation into Clinton's perjury, Kristol and others claimed that their main and abiding interest was the consistent application of the rule of law.

Now that this same law has been applied to a Republican, and one who has been found guilty under that law, this wish to see "the consistent application of the rule of law" has been abandoned.

Indeed, he gives other reasons as to why a pardon is an imperative. Now we are told that Bush should pardon Libby immediately - for Bush's own sake - to prevent any further investigation into whether or not Libby was "a fall guy" who took the rap to protect others in the Bush administration. In other words, in order to protect other criminals in the White House from exposure, the President should let this criminal go. As arguments go, it's nothing if not audacious:

After all, Libby's lawyers foolishly (or perhaps desperately) introduced at trial the notion that Libby was a "fall guy"--which would seem to legitimize the notion there was a conspiracy, of which Libby was a part, though a less important part than others. Each time a legal paper is filed, a new anti-Bush news cycle will erupt. So if the White House wants to minimize opportunities for fresh speculation about how the Libby case is part of some broader conspiracy, the president should act now.

You'll notice that there is no question that other people sharing in Libby's guilt should be investigated. Oh no, indeed, Libby must be pardoned to protect the White House from any such "fresh speculation".

Bush has an interest in being as strong an executive as possible for the remainder of his presidency. So does the country. This argues for an immediate pardon. Everyone who would be outraged by a pardon now would in any event spend the next year and a half being outraged at the prospect of a postelection pardon. But many of those who are demoralized now by Libby's conviction, and by the administration's passivity in defense of its people and policies, would be reinvigorated by a pardon.

So, in the end, Kristol gives up any pretence at making a legal argument as to why a pardon should be given and asks, instead, that it be done merely to "reinvigorate" "many of those who are demoralised now by Libby's conviction". In other words, it would cheer up the Republican base.

When the notion of pardon was introduced it was surely intended to be used to correct perceived wrongs, it is not conceivable that the founding fathers intended for such powers to be used by a President to pardon a member of his own administration. Were that to be the case then the administration could simply break the law at will, safe in the knowledge that they would never be held to any form of account. If Libby were to be pardoned, as the act of pardoning was intended to be used, then that would surely have to be done by another administration?

However, such legalese is of no interest to the likes of Kristol who, in September last year gave another reason as to why he believed Libby should be pardoned:

Bush should pardon Libby. He should do it now. It would be fantastic. The Democrats would go crazy.

So there are the two main reasons why Kristol thinks Bush should pardon Libby. To avoid any further investigation into whether or not Libby was merely "a fall guy" for other criminals in the White House and, best of all, because "the Democrats would go crazy".

Kristol once said, "I don't think 'all men are created equal' means everyone has the same judgment, capacity of judgment, or understanding. In a healthy society there would be elites that directly or indirectly shape the culture and people's understanding....One of the paradoxes of being conservative in the late twentieth century is that you're supposed to be for the elites, but today the elites are more liberal [than the people], so you end up being for 'the people.' And that can degenerate into a kind of dumb populism."

Indeed, Mr Kristol. Perhaps the kind of "dumb populism" that would require actions be taken simply because it would drive Democrats "crazy"?

In what substantive way is this nutbag different from Ann Coulter?

Click title for Kristol's diatribe.

Tags: William Kristol, Scooter Libby, Bush, pardon