The loyalty and legacy of the Bushies

March 8, 2007

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Creature — my assistant editor at The Reaction and the head honcho at State of the Day — had this to say in response to the Libby conviction:

I say the pardon will come sooner rather than later. Libby will never spend a day in jail. The only thing that could stop a pardon is if Congress chooses to investigate what Patrick Fitzgerald called “a cloud” around the Vice President and the White House. If that happens then I would not be surprised if the president throws Cheney under a bus — and a Libby pardon under it with him. The president may have a reputation for loyalty, but I’m betting his legacy and his need to scapegoat someone will prove to be more important than loyalty. He’s spoiled like that.

I agree that Libby won’t go to jail — if Nixon didn’t, how can Libby? It’s only a matter of when Bush will issue a pardon, not if. But what I find interesting here is that Creature has highlighted the tension at the core of George W. Bush (and indeed of the Bush Family generally):

Loyalty vs. Legacy

The Bushies obviously prize loyalty — those who are loyal are rewarded handsomely — but above all they seem to prize self-preservation, or selfish reputation. Given Libby’s ties to Cheney, it seems quite unlikely that Bush would throw him under a bus, and he likely would rather have Cheney resign (citing health reasons as the excuse) than expose a rift at the top (the Bushies also prize secrecy and control), but a congressional investigation could force Bush’s hand and postpone a seemingly inevitable pardon — in which case the scapegoating of Libby would continue in earnest.

Anyway, here’s how Dickerson put it at Slate yesterday: “Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. Will he get a pardon, as Caspar Weinberger did in that case? Who knows? If he gets a pardon, it will suggest the president is rewarding him for taking a fall for the White House and the vice president. If he doesn’t, it will suggest that President Bush, who said he was sad for the Libby family, isn’t sad enough.”

Or, if he doesn’t, that Bush only cares about himself.

All I can say is: Let there be more investigation. Do not let Libby’s guilt be the end of it. The cover-up was serious, but the crime was worse — and that’s where the focus needs to be.

He will get a pardon if, like Cap Weinberger, he has an incriminating diary which those capable of granting pardons don’t want circulated.

  • personally I would really like to see libby in prison, having his ass greased up several times a day by the unwitting instruments of poetic justice.

    but a bush pardon of libby will presumably disgust the nation so much that it will materially impact the 2008 cycle.

    all the more so becasue of the perception that libby lied only to protect bush and cheney by covering up their role in plamegate. bush wouldn’t be seen as pardoning an ex white house staffer so much as saving his own sorry ass.

    libby’s too, though, and literally instead of metaphorically.

    to me the golden mean would be for libby to be pardoned after he had spent enough time in jail to leave him permanently unable to sit down again.

  • if Nixon didn’t, how can Libby?

    Easy. One was the President of the United States, the other was an aide to the Vice President. Outside of the “Beltway” I don’t think anyone really cares what happens to the old Scooter. Some politian lied about…something…yawn.

    A presidential pardon (and the attendant outcry) would grab the nation’s attention and it would annoy all of the other ReThugs and Friends of ReThugs out there who are also in need of a get out of jail free pass: Ney, Il Dukester, various Enronites. They might feel hard done by and start to talk. I suppose the pResident could pardon everyone but that again raises the issue of why the man who laughed when a woman went to the electric chair is suddenly so free with the pardons.

    So far as loyalty goes, of course it only flows one way (up). It is an honour to die or go to prison for the king and the king would be surprised to find anyone thought differently.

  • Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. If Libby doesn’t, then the good old boys’ club lives on.

  • Remember that Dear Leader doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He does as he pleases and so far has gotten away with it. Everything blows over; everything blows. Libby will be pardoned on some Friday at 5:00 and will not spend one day in jail.

  • It may boil down to how loyal Scooter feels toward Bush, and if he wants to wait two years for his pardon or not. I seriously doubt that Bush will pardon Libby before the 2008 election, they want this story to die and a pardon would breathe a lot of new life into it.

    Cheney’s toxic “cloud” needs to be investigated, and any Democrat who doesn’t think so needs to be thrown under the bus. Failure to investigate the cloud rewards Cheney, who has been the worst leader this country has ever endured.

    Want more Cheneys? Then let his cloud stay, and pollute our democracy further.

  • I agree with lyn (#5). If Martha Stewart can do time, Scooter can do time.

    At the same time, I wonder if there might be room for some sentencing negotiations. Something like, canaries go to Club Fed, but tight-lipped tough guys do their time in the super max.

  • Sorry, Bush cannot “throw Cheney under a bus.” Bush cannot force any sort of Cheney resignation, if Cheney doesn’t want to go. Unlike officers like Cabinet officials or prosecuting attorneys, the Vice President is a constitutional position, and he does not serve at the pleasure of the President. The only was to force a Cheney out is through impeachment and conviction.

    That said, Cheney might be prevailed upon to resign, and he might even decide to do so. But considering the way he generally acts, I tend to doubt it.

  • I can’t agree that Bush should pardon Libby to further besmirch, as if that’s not already a fait accompli, his so-called legacy, just to give the anti-Bushies yet more ammunition. A few, perhaps inconvenient, facts: Libby is Cheney’s man, not Bush’s. He served Cheney’s nefarious plots and secret mutterings as loyally as anyone possibly could. As one-sided as Bush’s sense of loyalty is, the only reason he would have to pardon Libby ever, let alone now, is self-protection or intense lobbying by Cheney.

    Libby, or at least his attorney, turned on Rove during the trial (and then didn’t follow up). Rove is very definitely Bush’s guy, and by all accounts as close to the Decider as he ever was, if not closer, despite the November election results. (Go figure.) Bush has absolutely no reason to pardon Libby now unless Cheney puts himself on the line, which I predict he won’t, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of loyalty on Cheney’s part or animus on Bush’s part.

    The political calculus is not all that complicated. A pardon now serves neither Libby’s, Cheney’s nor Bush’s purposes. It would mean Bush loses the paper-thin excuse of not commenting on an ongoing legal process – not that the compliant, obedient, lazy and stupid White House press corps would really push very hard anyway. As long as there is even a threat of more investigation – don’t hold your breath – keeping the lid on is the primary goal.

    A pardon now means Libby would be free to say whatever he wants, and behave in any way he wants. While that could be very inconvenient for the White House – not that Libby would rat out his buddies, except maybe Rove – he knows at the end of the day he will be taken care of. I’m sure Cheney can arrange a comfortable sinecure at Halliburton or somewhere in the defense contractor world. For now Libby just has to play the game, although in the final analysis, he would probably rather be exonerated rather than pardoned, especially if he wants to remain a high profile lawyer/lobbyist rather than just a martyr for the cause. I don’t know if a pardon wipes out a felony conviction that would require disbarment.

    In any case Libby knows where the skeletons are buried, a mass grave of them, and should he really face jail time, a vanishingly small probability, he could start to leak. And we know he knows how since that’s why he’s in this warm water to begin with. But that would be a desperate worst-case scenario probably brought on by a complete implosion of Bush’s criminal empire – something to be eagerly awaited, but not realistically expected.

    Despite the rants and raves of the right wing claque demanding an instant pardon, which really only serve to tell Libby that he has fans and not to worry, the only logical plan is for Libby to get pardoned at 11:30 a.m. on January 20, 2009, whatever his legal status at that moment may be. The chances of him being in jail then are just about zero, given the way legal proceedings can be deliberately drawn out. And that will be the game: delay, delay, delay; run out the clock.

    No where, of course, is there very much discussion of the damage a pardon, no matter when it is granted, does either to the Constitution or the ‘rule of law’ that supposedly governs us. Bush I pardoned Elliot Abrams (again involved in this dust up) and Caspar Weinberger among other Iran-Contra thugs, and thereby sent the strong signal to the boys that they needn’t worry about being held accountable for doing the dirty work of the power elite. A Libby pardon would solidify that message, and certainly make Bush II his father’s son, no matter how distasteful that might be to junior. If you kill for the king your head is safe, and we can only expect that future presidents and their minions will behave accordingly. Wasn’t it Nixon who said, “If the president does it, or authorizes it, it isn’t illegal?”

  • I wonder if there would be any political will to amend the constitution to disallow the pardoning of those persons within your own administration. This would allow subsequent presidents to pardon Libby (and future evildoers) but not the current one. Kind of a conflict of interest rule.

    Oh, sorry, I said political will. I forgot, the Dems have none.

  • “….if Congress chooses to investigate what Patrick Fitzgerald called “a cloud” around the Vice President and the White House…..”

    IF we had a congress, then it would be bound by its oversight responsibility to investigate.

  • Echoing other posters, I hope the Democrats realize this is a situation whose outcome they can shape and not just one to react to. By getting statements in the public sphere that shape the whole dialogue about the case they can get the Repubs to play defense and be reactionary. If leading Democrats get out duel conversations, one saying of course Bush will pardon Libby because they’re all guilty and there is honor among crooks and the other saying he won’t pardon him because Scooter’s guilty as sin and a pardon would just cast more light on the fact that the whole Iraq war based on lies then the Repubs will find themselves spending all their time denying accusations rather than pushing their spin.

    Racerx has a geat point that the wild card is Scooter. A guy who used to be known for his hard work and supreme loyalty now finds his reputation shattered after becoming a convicted felon for following orders. Does Scooter exact some revenge or seek to clear his name in either the press, a hearing room or a court room? It has to be tough to have your kids look at you as a concvicted crook.

  • Am I correct in saying that Nixon didn’t pardon anyone and that he was the only Whitehouse thug who got the pardon? I think the rest of them served their time like good little boys, made good money on books, and now have respectable careers in various aspects of conservatism. I think Libby will do the same.

    The undoing of Nixon was that Watergate involved people who weren’t diehard Republican loyalists, including John Dean. And the non-loyalists screwed Nixon over, including the actual burglars who were trying to blackmail Nixon, and who Nixon was caught on tape talking about bribing. But the upper-level guys all stayed loyal, excepting Dean. That’s really the main problem with these guys, truly competent people aren’t diehard loyalists; so they can’t trust the competent ones.

    Libby is loyal to Cheney and will stay loyal. He lied to cover for Cheney and a pardon will make things look bad for Cheney, and won’t be necessary. Libby will do his time and be well compensated for it. He’s Cheney’s man.

  • If he does pardon Libby I am not sure it will be because of loyalty. Remember that for Bush that loyalty goes one direction and Libby (or whomever) would be doing all the heavy lifting. Also remember Bush can be pretty petty and he might not be so forgving of someone who has distracted from the pResident’s message and actually given him grief. Not to mention this trial’s impact on Bush’s legacy. Saying that, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he did pardon Libby for no other reason than spite towards his policial enemys/foes.

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