How could Bush justify a pardon for Scooter Libby?

Already there are calls in some circles for President Bush to pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former vice presidential chief of staff, who was convicted of perjury, making false statements and obstructing justice.
Libby was accused of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about when he learned that Valery Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked at the CIA and with whom he discussed her identity.
Bush shouldn't pardon Libby -- not now, not ever -- simply because a pardon would be so totally uncharacteristic of this president that the motives behind his action would be immediately suspect.
No modern president has been as miserly with pardons as has President Bush. He has granted just 113 over six years, compared to Bill Clinton, who issued 457, and Ronald Reagan, who issued 406, each in eight years. And President Bush has never pardoned anyone who had not completed his sentence and been released from prison. The only way Libby would fit that bill is if he were given the minimum sentence in June, and began serving it immediately -- an unlikely combination.
A solitary voice
One of the few conservative Republicans openly arguing against a pardon is former House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas. "If he does pardon Scooter Libby, then it will be construed, whether correctly or not, as an admission on his part that there's culpability that goes beyond the foolishness of an individual in the administration and that Scooter took a bullet for the team."
But conservative commentators are characterizing Libby as the victim of an overzealous special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, who pursued an unnecessary investigation. One such commentary appears on this very page, by columnist Thomas Sowell.
Yet, eight years ago, when others were saying that Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr was conducting a runaway prosecution of President Clinton, Sowell asked: "When Clinton lied, was Starr supposed to let it go at that or was he supposed to start collecting evidence to the contrary? And when Clinton tried to stop him from getting evidence and testimony that contradicted the lies, was Starr supposed to roll over and play dead or go into court and start issuing subpoenas?
"What was the special prosecutor supposed to do when the president committed perjury and then tried to weasel out of it by redefining the word 'sex'? Let Clinton make a mockery of the law or start talking specifics?"
Critics of Fitzgerald pretend that once it was known that Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of State, identified Plame to columnist Robert Novak, the investigation should have been quashed. But in addition to Libby, other Bush officials, including top adviser Karl Rove, were involved in leaking Plame's name to half a dozen reporters. The purpose was to discredit Wilson, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. An investigation into political intrigue that is arguably criminal doesn't end just because one person stands up and says, "I did it."
President Bush had said that if anyone in his White House had leaked Plame's identity, that person would be fired. We suggested years ago that if the president really wanted to know the answer, he would have called each of the possible suspects into his office and asked them point blank. Surely none would have lied to the president's face.
Instead, Bush said he intended to let the Justice Department handle the investigation. He refused to become involved or to comment in any way on any aspect of the investigation.
And so it fell to Fitzgerald to sort out the mess. And in so doing, he became convinced that Libby's dissembling kept that probe from reaching Vice President Dick Cheney. He even said there is still "a cloud" over the vice president. To paraphrase Sowell, what was Fitzgerald to do when he found out that he'd been lied to? Let Libby make a mockery of the law?
A jury sat through the trial, heard testimony, viewed evidence and determined that Libby had lied. Jurors didn't accept the premise that a man with Libby's responsibilities for managing the office of the vice president of the United States couldn't keep it straight in his head as to who said what and when about an issue as important as whether the administration was correct in pursuing a war strategy in Iraq.
Bush said Wednesday that he is "pretty much going to stay out of" the Libby case until the legal process has run its course. That would seem to require that Libby either win an appeal or serve his sentence, after which he would have to seek a pardon, which would normally be reviewed by a special office at the Justice Department for a recommendation.
If President Bush is true to his word, he will be a civilian back in Texas long before Libby's possible pardon comes across another president's desk. Which is as it should be.