Radley Balko pretty much sums up my feelings on this case:
I'm not about to stick up for a witch-hunt prosecution of a guy who seems to have been convicted of misremembering from whom he heard something, based on evidence that essentially consists of what other people did or didn't remember. Even if I don't happen to like the guy who's just been convicted. It strikes me as quite similar to the Martha Stewart case -- the defendant was convicted of lying during the course of an investigation of a crime that prosecutors could never prove was actually committed. All of us ought to find that troubling. ... President Bush's use of the pardon power to this point has generally been to exonerate people for crimes committed decades ago -- crimes they've admitted to and have repented for. He hasn't used it for the reasons it was intended -- as a final check on real injustices that may have slipped through the system. If Bush suddenly decides to use the pardon power to correct a prosecutorial overreach only on the occasion when the person being prosecuted is a formerly high-ranking official in his administration, his critics have every reason to cry foul.
Amen. These episodic scandals are distractions from the real political issues. We shouldn't expect consistency in this particular case where we haven't decried its absence elsewhere.
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