1 Boring Old Man

Aides Say No Pardon for Libby Irked Cheney

The officials said Tuesday that Mr. Cheney’s lobbying campaign on behalf of Mr. Libby was far more intense than previously known, with the vice president bringing it up in countless one-on-one conversations with the president. They said Mr. Bush was unyielding to the end, already frustrated by a deluge of last-minute pardon requests from other quarters. The dispute underscored the raw feelings of Mr. Cheney and other supporters of Mr. Libby, who believed that he was mistreated by prosecutors and ill served by a president who, in their view, failed to return Mr. Libby’s loyalty and sacrifice…

For Mr. Cheney, the failure to win a pardon was a stinging loss that led him to offer a rare public rebuke of Mr. Bush’s judgment, saying of Mr. Libby in an interview with The Weekly Standard last month that “I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon,” and that “I disagree with President Bush’s decision”…

Several associates of Mr. Cheney said that a pardon for Mr. Libby became a nearly solitary goal for the vice president in his final days in office, his mission bolstered at home by his wife, Lynne, and daughter Elizabeth, both of whom had grown close to Mr. Libby over the years. From the beginning, Mr. Cheney took deep umbrage with what he saw as prosecutorial bullying of Mr. Libby in the C.I.A. leak case…

“Dick Cheney is not a guy who is bitter”… “He doesn’t seethe, he doesn’t brood”…

“I know he felt strongly about this,” Karl Rove, the former presidential adviser, said Tuesday morning on the “Today” show on NBC. But, he said, “these are two very close men who have a long and enduring relationship that’s good and positive and hasn’t been soured because of the lack of pardon”…

“Somebody’s going to have to ask President Bush why he went out of his way to say he respected the jury’s verdict,” said former Ambassador John R. Bolton, a close friend of Mr. Cheney who has broken with the president in recent years, in part over Mr. Libby’s case. “If you think it was a miscarriage of justice, then you think it shouldn’t have gone to a jury to begin with”…

       Has to happen today
       Call out to key press saying same thing
about Scooter as Karl
       Not going to protect one staffer & sacrifice
the guy the Pres that was asked to stick
his neck in the meat grinder because of the
incompetence of others –

• Both Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were sources for the Valerie Plame C.I.A. leak.
• Rove initially denied being a source until his lawyer was tipped off by Viveca Novak, a fellow reporter of Matt Cooper at Time. Rove went back to the Grand Jury claiming he was reminded by an email to Stephen Hadley [on the non-official email account].
• "the Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder"?
• "incompetence of" which "others"?

Cheney: Look, Mr. President, when Wilson’s op-ed appeared and I told you that his wife was C.I.A., you said "Well, get it out to the Press goddamit! Covert-Schmovert!" Scooter knows you said that. So, if you pardon Scooter, he will no longer be a felon and he can’t take the fifth. I’m not sure he’ll lie again because this time he’d go to prison. But if you don’t pardon him, he’ll turn against me so if I ever end up in court, he’ll probably talk, and you, Karl, and I will be toast. So, the only thing I can see is that you don’t pardon Scooter. It makes you look principled. I’ll go public disagreeing with you. That way, Scooter thinks I’m his loyal friend. The Press will continue to see me as Darth Vader and you’re a hero. Scooter can still take the fifth. Karl will talk about you and I as pals for life on Fox. And, by the way, it won’t look like you do whatever I say. It’s a slam dunk…
Bush: Heck of a job, Dickie…