A good time to be a courtier, I guess...

I could go overboard and make comparisons to conditions under 18th-century monarchies, but I'll try to restrain myself. "Scooter" Libby does a crime (although the appeals process is still ongoing...), gets sentenced to start serving some jail time, and, lo and behold, El Presidente steps forth and says "Don't worry Scooter, I won't let you serve any jail time!" He does so noting that the sentence he received is too harsh, in his opinion.

You know, I can think of a time when a president might have used this as a reason to spur a review of federal sentencing guidelines, and maybe quietly commuted the offender's sentence after some jail time had been served, but that's obviously not recent history. Of course, Mr. Bush tries to defend his action, because, hey, Scooter still has a fine he has to pay, and probation to serve, and he'll be marked as a felon from this point on (supposing he doesn't get pardoned first), but honestly, in that Washington these days, are any of those problems? Tell me that Scooter won't receive financial aid to cover his legal bills and fines from political contributors. Tell me that he won't be given an accommodating parole officer so he can schedule his meetings just like any of his other meetings he does as part of his job. Best of all, tell me that anybody he's likely to go to work for in the private sector will really consider his felon status a detriment to the company. I could really use a good laugh right about now.

All in all, it's not a hard concept... equal protection under the law, never mind whether you're connected or not. What's worst in this, though, is if you catch the video of Mr. Bush announcing this commutation... in comparison to any other announcement he's given in recent years (and he's given a few), he's batting his eyes like mad while giving it, which is usually a pretty good sign in most people that they're knowingly bullshitting you. I'd still be irked that he did this if it was just "hey, I really am as clueless as I usually act", but this just takes the cake.

Gods, but I do love it so when somebody (especially somebody in a position of trust) gives me an all-new low estimation of mankind.