Actually, I just saw Bush's actual remarks, and I must say I agree completely with him:

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place.

Both critics and defenders of this investigation have made important points. I have made my own evaluation. In preparing for the decision I am announcing today, I have carefully weighed these arguments and the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

That all sounds eminently reasonable to me, and hats off to George for saying it. IMHO, he had it righter than I originally gave him credit for, and I don't have a lot to add to his assessment of it, other than to reiterate that he's still giving his enemies way too much rope, and he oughta know better than that by now.

Yes, we on this side ought never to lose sight of the seriousness of perjury just because one of our own is in the crosshairs. But this whole thing was a politically-motivated dumb-show from almost the beginning, and I can't honestly say that I feel justice hasn't been done by seeing Scooter more or less turned loose.

And if it makes Filthy Harry react like this, it's gotta be right on the money:

And, Senator Harry Reid, Democratic Majority Leader, called the commutation 'disgraceful.'

"The President's decision to commute Mr. Libby’s sentence is disgraceful. Libby’s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone," Reid said in a statement. "The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice President’s Chief of Staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law."

Oh, bite a fat one, you skinny crook. Come back and talk to us when you're ready to see a proper and just punishment meted out to Sandy Berglar for his criminal breach of national security.

Dang it, forgot the link: Reid's sniveling and pointless kvetching here.

"...once you get to the bottom of something the prosecutor's charter shouldn't be infinitely expandable."

Couldn't agree more on that one. And we all already know what this was really: a man was going to go to prison because Bushitler "stole the election." It's what every one of these manufactured "scandals" has really been about at bottom, that and vengeance for the "unjustified" "persecution" of the "Man From Hope." They'll never let it go, and each and every Republican President is going to get the exact same treatment or worse, until the day comes when the NYT's circulation consists entirely of one half-block on the Upper West Side and the only people watching CBS Evening News with Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton are drinking themselves to sleep on a bench in front of a Best Buy display window.

Like I said, still not a reason to discard punishment for the crime of perjury. But if all Clinton got was disbarment and all Bergler got was a 50,000 dollar fine, well, I can't honestly say I feel that not sending Scooter to jail is some kind of gross miscarriage of justice.

Not with a straight face, anyway. Not with the bargain-basement histrionics we're going to be laughing at all tomorrow morning on the Nuthatch Left.

Go piss up a rope, moron.

*Sigh* Another day, another nitwit banned. But thanks for providing us yet another sterling example of what the Left considers reasoned, logical debate for sane people to point and laugh at: lame, 2nd grade-level fag cracks.

Be sure to squeal like a pig when your Islamist allies saw your head off, fuckstick.

The usual Lefty sewers, Nance. They have a quite distinctive stench to 'em, and as such are easy to spot. Although I have an idea this one would have pretended to be a right-leaning libertarian if I'd let him prattle on long enough, judging from some of what he said. Seen a lot of that masquerade over the years, along with the peacenik phonies posing as ex-military, when the closest such ever got to soldiers was when he saw 'em at an airport and wished for about 3 seconds that he had the guts to spit on one, just like back in the 60's, maaaan!

Leave it to these Lefty blog-hangaround mouthbreathers to be so uncomfortable with what they are as to necessitate pretending to be something they ain't.

Funniest thing of all is how batshit incoherent they tend to be, and the more prominent the Lefty site, the more illiterate and JUST...PLAIN...STUPID the hordes of drive-by morons they send along with a link are. Some of the most absolutely idiotic commenters I've ever seen over the years were sent here by links from Gleenwald(s), Atrios, Kevin Drum, and of course Peter Daou at Salon. They can't debate, they can't think, they can't write, they can't spell, they can't even stay on topic, and rarely do they even try. Their spew reads like what projectile puking would look like in print, if projectile puking could be typed. As Wodehouse always said, these people truly make you question the idea of Man as Nature's last word.

I'm certainly not implying that the Right doesn't have its share of semiliterate droolcases -- people who give you a little frisson of horror and disgust when you read their rantings, which are sometimes so overladen with lunacy that you can almost feel the spittle spraying from their lips as you peruse 'em -- because we most certainly do. But for out-and-out jaw-dropping, self-contradictory, admit-no-logic, fact-free, reality-bereft, sophistic, disingenuous, over-emotional, perspective-deprived, rationally-untenable, cognitively-challenged, boneheaded obduracy, you're wasting your time looking anywhere but Leftwards, because that's where the REAL players hang out. And having lived on both sides of the divide, I think I know whereof I speak.

But I gotta say, I sure do get a good solid laugh out of hangin' the Trollcap on 'em. THAT, my friends, truly never gets old.

Can't really remember, but then he used that one more than once. Lord knows it was a good enough line to bear repeating; so many of his were.