Guys like us don't go to jail for enabling guys like us

Updated below

So Bush commuted part of Scooter Libby's sentence. I don't have much to say, really. I'm not surprised, shocked, outraged, or even pissed off. It's hard to be surprised at the inevitable, and there just is no point to being shocked, outraged, or even pissed off -- other than ever so briefly in order to avoid cerebral hemorrhages -- at presidential pardons and commutations. They are what they are.

Here's an enthusiastically haphazard roundup of what others are saying and doing…

Guys like us don't go to jail for enabling guys like us.

David Brooks tells lies about Joe Wilson and then smugly declares:

President Bush’s decision in the case of I. Lewis Libby Jr. was exactly right.

Why does Tony Snow want to spend his waning days on the planet doing crap like this?

From this morning's White House press briefing.

One female reporter asked whether the "someone in the administration owes the American public an apology over the outing of CIA personnel." Snow said it shouldn't have happened and then moved on to the next reporter. The same female reporter then followed up with, "So you think someone should apologize to the American public?" Snow rubbed his eye and said, "I'll do it. I apologize." and then moved on.
So there it is -- the administration has apologized.
At one point, after this, several reporters were quite pissed off and saying very loudly that a) Libby obstructed justice and b) Snow was insulting their intelligence.

Not in anybody's lifetime.

An overly optimistic The Cunning Realist would like to see some changes made.

We also know now that Congress must find a way to restrict permanently the executive's ability to grant clemency. It won't be easy. But the Libby precedent will make the pardon process little more than a get-out-of-jail-free card for rogues willing to commit crimes involving war and national security with the tacit understanding that, if discovered, they will do less time behind bars than Paris Hilton.

Freeper logic -- read at your own peril!

"Where's W.'s outrage and genuine pissed-offness of a man wrongly convicted by a circus jury of trained seals being led by the bait feeder, fitz? This was obvious railroading by Fitz the Persecuter."

"The Nifongism show trial of Scooter Libby was the real travesty of justice. The shadow government lashing out by any means necessary."

"The commutation was a step in the right direction, but a full pardon was called for if only to stick a middle finger in Fitzfongs face."
***

And so it goes.

Update

Somebody's really asking for it.

The Rude Pundit is struggling mightily to restrain himself.

[I]f you've ever wanted to feel like beating down a man who wears glasses, check out David Brooks's column today. Yeah, it's behind the wall, but here's just a little taste: " The drama opened, as these dark comedies are wont to do, with a strutting little peacock who went by the unimaginative name of Joe Wilson." Oh, man, you just want to drop a bar of soap into a sock and head down to the Times, but we're not savages, right?

The Deciderer was just protecting our nation!

One of the funniest conclusions ever reached on Free Republic.

Ok fine send Libby to prison -- How would that work out? let's see -- how long will it take before someone there gets key information out of him, then resells it one of America's enemys [sic]? . . . Really this has nothing to do with "playing politics" and everything to do with Politics. I don't see favortism [sic] as the key for Bush's decision to commutate [sic] Libby. What I see Bush doing is keeping America Safe. Let's face it; Libby just plan and simply knows tooo dang much secret information.

Think of it as Neo-Math.

Attaturk at Rising Hegemon considers the precise calculations that went into Libby's commutation.

1787: All are equal under law except the blacks who are 3/5ths equal.

1865: Scratch that, they're equal.

1964: Okay, we're serious this time, all are equal.

2007: All are equal except prominent Republican White Men (who help us kill non-white men), who are 7/5ths of a normal man.

***