Commuting the sentence seems the reasonable thing to do.  The conviction still stands, as it should, imo.  But the man shouldn't have to serve prison time.  I think Bush did the right thing here.

The power of a President to commute a sentence is part of the process so how is Bush doing this not allowing the process to go forward?  Besides how does one obstruct justice when no crime has been committed?  And no crime was ever committed.  The prosecutor knew this when he began his investigation (i.e., that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent therefore releasing her name as a CIA employee was not a crime).  The prosecutor also knew who leaked her name--Richard Armitage--yet he investigated anyway.  Why?

Commuting the sentence was the appropriate thing considering the circumstances.   There should never have been an investigation to begin with since there was no crime to investigate.

After yesterday, he will, oh yes, he will!

In the end, I guess that lying under oath wasn't such a high crime or misdemeanor after all.   

(one thing I've noticed on this board is that nothing Republicans do wrong is ever all that serious. Funny how Libby perjured himself over something that wasn't important. I guess someone should have told him that it didn't matter after all.)

Truthfully, I haven't followed the Scooter Libby story much, I'm OK with his conviction if he is guilty. I think it is funny though that the media still refer to his crime as outing Valerie Plame. Libby was convicted on lying about something related to the case buy not about that. The point is he wasn't convicted of the stuff everyone was and is railing on him about. No problem convicting him if he did something wrong, but also no problem with the President exercising his rights as all other Presidents have done.

I don't agree with a lot of pardons or commutations of any President, but until they take that power away from the office, why scream about it. In Libby's case his conviction still stands, just his sentence was commuted. Not the same as a full pardon like some pretty bad dudes have gotten in the past.

I still want to know why Richard Armitage skated unscathed through all this. If what he did wasn't a crime, Scooter Libby would not have even been in a courtroom to lie.

Richard Armitage isn't a "so-called culprit" because he broke no law.  In fact there was nothing unethical in what he did.  He pointed out that Joe Wilson was sent to **badword** at the recommendation of his wife--a CIA employee.  Armitage related this to a columnist, Robert Novak, who did an article on this questioning the workings of the CIA.

Richard Armitage was in the state department at the time with a direct line to Colin Powell.  

Libby's conviction will stand, as of now, and he'll pay a fine.  Seems to me that's plenty for an investigation into something that was never a crime to begin with.  And the prosecutor knew that right from the start.  In fact, if one is looking for unethical behavior take a look at the prosecutor.

It's always a good idea to read past the headlines.  Novak, who is at the center of all of this, has a book out in which he details everything.  This has been the biggest non-story in the past 20 years.

As for Republicans doing no wrong, that is so childish.  If Republicans break a law they tend to be held to a higher standard than do their Democratic counterparts.   If Republicans are accused of unethical behavior--not just criminal behavior--they tend to get treated more severely by the media and their own party then do their Democratic counterparts.

Amen Gman.

I feel you are correct about the Republicans being held to a higher standard than their Democrat counterparts, and that was even when Republicans were supposedly in power.