Though I called for Scooter Libby to be pardoned in this space two weeks ago, I do not want to be lumped in with the neo-cons or Republican base that has been calling for the same result. My motivations have not been partisan in this matter. In my previous post I said, quite plainly, that the man deserved to be pardoned because a prison sentence would not accomplish anything except putting a high profile person in a taxpayer funded jail, for perjury, or lying under oath, the same thing that President Clinton did. The punishment, in my estimation, did not fit the crime.

The President did the right thing by sparing him jail time, a sentence that accomplishes nothing, but keeping the fine and the felony conviction in tact. This punishment is harder on a man like Libby – if you want to punish the privileged go after their money and their capacity to make more of it. Prison could’ve led to a tell all book, enriching Libby more, and hurting the administration (probably not possible at this point). By commuting the sentence you buy Libby’s loyalty but still make him pay a quarter of a million dollars for lying. This is not to mention that it’s the right thing to do.

What people are confusing with Libby’s perjury is the issue of war causality. Libby, no doubt, had something to do with selling this country a bill of goods in the Iraq War. He was not convicted of this; he couldn’t be. Let us not forget that it was not Scooter Libby that published the outing of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to discredit her husband but the press (in numerous outlets) who did the administration’s dirty work for them. If you closely examine the reports coming from people like Judy Miller, whose strange relationship with Libby has never been properly dissected, it was clear that editors as well as journalists had no more a passion for the truth when it came to Iraq than the administration did. They were accepting a sitting administration’s confusing logic as gospel and failed to hold the administration up to scrutiny as it sought to go to war. This was their job and that of Congress, and both entities, or Estates, failed. This does not morally absolve the administration but it does hurt the credibility of both institutions.

So now that all the talking heads are all calling for Scooter’s head, we have to ask the following: Where was that diligence in 2002-2003? Where was this desire to question and dissect the motivations of this sinister administration when it really mattered? The press has, from the beginning, remained fifteen steps behind this administration and settled for scraps of information from junior level staffers left behind in bubble gum wrappers on the pavement.

If there were any sincerity about punishing the people responsible for getting us into this war, there would be serious talk of impeachment, of serious investigation of the administration by Congress, etc. Instead we have a lot of hoopla over nothing – a man accused and convicted of lying about leaking the name of a CIA agent for political purposes. This does not address war causality – no it avoids war causality by focusing the attention on minutiae and completely missing the real issue. The media, instead of reporting on this silly affair, should have put their energy into investigating the real issues. But they failed once more by focusing on the easy headline and by not going after the big story.

But they missed the point completely. Today’s headlines confirm why people don’t like to read the newspapers anymore and seek to get their news from the Daily Show. Satire seems to have more moral credibility these days.