Nope. I'm not surprised. Anyone who claimed to have believed that Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff was going to spend even an hour in a jail cell was either being disingenuous or naive. The fact that it is only a semi-pardon is of no importance. Libby will be going on the lecture circuit; he'll pay the $250,000 fine with five speeches. As for not being able to practice law...he hasn't practiced law for years, he wasn't going to go back to it.
The interesting thing is that Bush had to issue his semi-pardon at all. None of the judges, not the trial judge nor the three on the appeals panel, followed the implied desires of their "commander-in-chief." That is reassuring. Perhaps, we still have an independent judiciary, or at least a few remnant pieces of one.
UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I should add that Bush totally botched the execution of Libby's semi-pardon. It was as if he was trying to make it look a crass politician saving a political ally. He could have gone through the motions of thinking about it, like referring the question to the Justice Department for comment. But, no, that would have been semi-intelligent - a feat well beyond George Bush.
More Thoughts (because I don't want to write a new posting): For the Republican 9-11 changed everything crowd, the timing of the Libby semi-pardon was horrible. The Libby story just stomps the "London wasn't successfully bombed" terrorism story in to a mushy pulp.
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You know, that's a very good point about the Libby Pardon blasting the terror plot off the front pages.
For the past few days in the morning all MSNBC has been running is footage of the burning car and people wandering the streets of London.
But this morning they devoted hours to the Libby thing.
Undermines the ability of Republicans to use the terror shit as propaganda as you suggest.
My question is, what does Libby know that has Bush and Cheney jumping through hoops for him?
Libby knows just about everything. He has helped bury most of the skeletons.
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