LESSONS FROM LIBBY

The Plame-Libby case ends with a reporter who refused to reveal her source shipped off to jail while the source, found guilty of lying under oath about his involvement in the case, walks free. The lessons are clear: 1) The ability of government officials to tell reporters – that is, the public – about government activity off the record is judicially discouraged; 2) respect for the nation’s system of punishment extends only to the point at which it affects the friends of the president.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller – she of the turning aspens – was jailed for 85 days because she refused to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA agent. The court, in an atmosphere of an especially secretive administration, devalued the ability of reporters to assure background sources that their identities would be protected.

On Monday, pre-empting coverage of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Bush looked at the 30 months of jail time assigned to Lewis Libby and announced, “I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.” The president didn’t say in what sense he respected the jury’s verdict, though it may not have been the part in which the verdict was connected to sentencing guidelines.

Opponents of the Bush administration made far too much of the Libby trial, hoping it would ensnare Karl Rove or perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney. When that didn’t happen, they turned toward payback, pointing out that when President Clinton lied under oath about an extramarital affair, Republicans impeached him. The double standard in these cases, however, works both ways – in the Libby case, Republicans urged mercy, if not an outright pardon, as Democrats reveled in the sentence handed down.

President Clinton was saved by acquittals by the Senate, which rejected both perjury and obstruction of justice charges. (Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were among the few Republicans to vote not guilty.) The nation was pulled between the arguments about the seriousness of lying under oath and the subject about which the president was lying.

Mr. Libby wasn’t as fortunate as President Clinton. His guilt led to prison, and President Bush should not have interfered, even if he did not like the outcome and even though Mr. Clinton’s freewheeling pardon fest at the end of his second term was fairly atrocious. In his statement on commuting Mr. Libby’s prison time, President Bush said his decision to commute the sentence left in place “a harsh punishment,” and mentioned Mr. Libby’s family. He is undoubtedly correct that the Libby family suffered through the trial, but the president’s selective empathy – what family of those convicted doesn’t suffer? – merely reinforces the administration’s pattern of seeing court decisions more as suggestions than enforceable rulings.

The Libby trial soon will be a small footnote to the long story of the Iraq war. Democrats will be frustrated that more political gain couldn’t have been wrung from the trial, but both parties will find ways to use it as an excuse for inappropriate behavior in the future.