News & Tech

Scooter Libby has been spared from prison. According to a report from Fox News the President Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. That means that his sentence will stay intact, but no jail time for Mr. Libby.

Scooter Libby Gets a Pass From President Bush: Sentence Commuted

He will still face a fin of a quarter million dollars and will have two years of probation but will he finally gets a "get out of jail" free card from the president. Many wanted a full pardon.

***

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh had this on Monday: " It's time for this pardon. It just really is. A lot of people have made the call on the president to do this and he's reluctant to do it for a host of reasons, pending the appeal. He wants to wait for the appeal to happen. I don't see how it could lower his standing in the polls."

"But he's not used the pardon that presidents have nearly as much as previous presidents have. I read this, and I just can't really imagine what it's like to be Scooter Libby. He's got to think he's in a dream or in a nightmare or in the Twilight Zone, and his family as well."

***

Expect the hyperbole to begin. Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.