Mike the Usurper wrote:
That's the scenario basically spin free.

Thank you. I guess the problem I'm having is that opinions seem to hinge on stuff you don't mention in your fact list and are perhaps not really knowable.
1. Was Plame actually a covert agent?
2. Why did the administration leak this information? Is it because they were getting revenge against Wilson or was it simply an explanation for what Wilson was doing in Niger?
3. Was the sentence reasonable or not? (Was the judge trying to send a message to the political class about how the court system actually works for normal people? Even if so, what does a commuted sentence mean?)
4. Was it reasonable to pursue a prosecution against Libby in the first place?

There is a hell of a lot of smoke here, in particular because Bush has never used his power to commute a sentence in this way before, but I'd prefer to stick to issues that are clearer. In many cases there is a clear disagreement about policy, and its possible to have an opinion about it. In this case there are simply a whole lot of people pointing fingers at eachother and saying "those guys are corrupt partisans who've gone too far." People's opinion about it seems to line up clearly on partisan lines.

RE: The Volokh Conspiracy - Was the Libby case political?