To whom should the laws of this country apply? Drug dealers, murderers, pedophiles, rapists, thieves, adulterers? Definitely. What about liars and people who obstruct justice? Should application of laws about lying to police, to grand juries, to juries and judges, be on a case-by-case basis? What about laws regarding obstruction of justice? Should those laws be enforced in cases involving regular folk like you and me? What about government officials?
President George W. Bush announced on July 2 that he had decided to commute the 30 month prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Libby, former security aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney, was convicted earlier this year of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the case of leaking information to the press about undercover CIA Agent Valerie Plame. Libby still must pay $250,000 in fines and serve two years' probation. Plame’s career is finished.
Still, there remains a possibility that Bush may pardon all charges for which Libby was convicted.
Some people, including Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill.) consider Libby’s decision to “out” Plame a violation of national security. “The decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division,” Barak told The Chicago Tribune. Some people think otherwise: “By acting here, he [Bush] is showing to conservatives the kind of leadership that made conservatives loyal to Bush once and could make them loyal once more,” William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, told the Tribune.
Bush said Libby’s prison sentence was “harsh” for a first-time offender who devoted many years to public service. But the president’s decision easily could set a precedent for other “first-time offenders” convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. If 30 months in prison is too harsh for lying and obstructing justice in a case that put our national security on the line, what should be an appropriate punishment for lying and obstructing an investigation of a murder? A couple weeks? A few months? What is an appropriate sentence for someone caught lying on the stand in a drug-related lawsuit? A day or two? How about three?
Bush told the Tribune that “our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth.” Does he really believe that? Former President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having an affair a White House intern. If Bush applied the same “first-time offender” rule to Clinton, then shouldn’t Bush pardon Clinton? After all, lying about having sexual relations with an intern is not a breach of national security. Stupid, yes. Scandalous, absolutely. But putting national security at risk? Not even close.
So what does “justice,” what does “truth” really mean for our elected officials? If Bush’s pardoning of Libby is used as a benchmark, then perjury and obstruction of justice both are serious but not major crimes, even in cases involving national security, and should not demand prison time of anything more than 30 months, if any time at all. Perhaps justice is something we Americans no longer can expect when it comes to crimes committed by the Bush Administration, or any presidential administration for that matter. Perhaps expecting the truth from our elected officials is old-fashioned, naive.
Think about it: Everyone lies. Everyone tries to cover one’s own behind, especially when that behind is about to be spanked. But should not our elected officials be held to a higher standard? If our elected officials are allowed to lie about anything and everything from extramarital affairs to leaking confidential information to the press to fabricating reasons to go to war, should we not wonder what other lies they may be telling? What other falsehoods are being passed off as truths?
Truth is a funny thing; it can be turned and twisted to fit our opinions, our reasons for doing one thing or another or not doing something. If our elected officials, if our president and his aides continually are allowed to get away with twisting the truth or outright lying about this, that and the other thing, should we not wonder where this country is headed? Or is this kind of behavior just the new American way?
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