The Pardon in all but Name

So. Scooter Libby has received a full pard--er, commutation of his sentence from Idiot Boy--er, president Bush.

What this means is that the only man to be held slightly accountable for leaking the name of a covert CIA operative to the media, thus ending her career, will not spend a day in jail, and his token fines (you may think 250K is not such a token fine, but consider that a special fundraising commitee has already raised 2 Million for his defense and any financial penalties he may incur) will not even cause him the slightest inconvenience.

And while you may say that now he is a man with a criminal record (pending reversal on appeal), I might point out that many other people involved in White House scandals and who now have criminal records to show for it have gone on to have long and prosperous careers (G. Gordon Liddy, I'm looking your way here!)

The Constitution of the United States states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

Valerie Plame was heavily involved with countering the efforts of rogue nations, terrorist groups, and other nefarious characters to obtain materials for constructing nuclear weapons. She did this, presumably, by building a secret network of informants throughout several African states which posessed the resources necessary to construct these weapons. These informants would in turn inform her of anyone attempting to obtain said materials. In other words, she was doing the job she had been assigned to. We will probably never know how well. It is a well-known tenet that only the failures of the CIA are ever known.

But publication of her name in the media ended those efforts for good. And irreparably destroyed her career. All in the name of embarassing her husband, a well-known critic of the Bush Regime. A regime, I might point out, that considers any criticism of it to be treason of the highest order.

Scooter Libby, leaking the name of Valerie Plame, committed treason by giving aid and comfort to the enemy, by way of letting them know exactly who they could not trust. He no doubt did this on the orders of Vice President Cheney and/or Karl Rove and/or "President" Bush. We will probably never know just how high up on the food chain that order came from.

But we will always know that Scooter Libby committed Treason as defined by the Constitution. And he will never spend a single day behind bars for doing so.
And that is a disgrace.