Former President Bill Clinton criticized the Bush Administration for commuting Scooter Libby's sentence. Now, that is pretty far out there.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Chief of Staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in connection with the CIA leak investigation. Notably, he was not charged (and hence not convicted) of being the leak. Instead, the charges and conviction were based on statements he made during the course of the investigation to federal agents and a Grand Jury. He was sentenced to 30-months in prison, a $250,000 fine and two-years of probation. Most agree that the sentence imposed was more severe than others with similar violations and exceeded the federal sentencing guidelines. However, the crimes were serious and involved matters of national security.
The federal court hearing the case ordered that Scooter Libby serve his sentence including the prison time while his appeal was pending. After a federal Court of Appeals refused to stay the sentence, President Bush commuted (as opposed to pardoned) Scooter Libby, leaving in place the conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the probation. A pardon would have been a complete forgiveness of the crime and eliminated any of the penalty associated with it.
Former President Bill Clinton was impeached by the United States House of Representatives for perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The United States Senate did not convict him of those charges. Most agree that he lied under oath when he denied having sex with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. In a separate matter, President Clinton was disbarred from the practice of law for five years and ordered to pay $25,000 in fines as part of an agreement in which federal prosecutors agreed to abandon federal perjury charges against him in connection with the Whitewater investigation.
On his last day in office, President Clinton handed out over one hundred pardons including one to Marc Rich, an international commodities trader who had been indicted for tax evasion and illegal international transactions with Iran during the hostage crisis. [Oddly enough, the United States Attorney leading the investigation against Rich was Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York and now Republican Presidential Candidate.] Rich's former wife and mother of his children was a significant contributor to the Democratic Party and to the Clinton library.
So, in this context, here is what former President Bill Clinton had to say about President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence; they "believe they should be able to do what they want, and that the law is a minor obstacle." There is a disconnect here.
As Tony Snow put it, "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it." According to Wikipedia, in Hebrew, "Chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame." That about captures its use in this case.
The only thing that makes less sense is when "the" Reverend Al Sharpton attacked Attorney General Thurbert Baker based on the State of Georgia's appeal in the Genarlow Wilson case. This is the same Al Sharpton that helped lead the effort on behalf of Tawana Brawley, a woman who, in 1987, falsely accused six men of rape. A Grand Jury found that her story had been fabricated. In a libel suit against Sharpton, after he accused a local prosecutor of being involved, the jury found Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements and ordered him (and two attorneys) to pay $345,000 dollars in damages. And Sharpton is the spokesman against Georgia's Attorney General?
The world has gone mad.