When They Look Back at Libby

Future researchers digging through the legal and political rubble of US v. I. Lewis Libby may be puzzled to find:

“If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the President said in 2004 about the outing of Valerie Plame. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”

In 2007, he took care of the leaker by commuting his 30-month sentence before it started.

Libby, who was found guilty, did not serve one minute. A New York Times reporter was behind bars for 85 days.

The Vice President’s former chief of staff was fined $250,000. His admirers raised $5 million for his defense, none of which, they insisted, would be used to pay that obligation.

The day after the commutation, a New York Times editorial titled “Soft on Crime” said Mr. Bush “sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”

The same day on the facing page, columnist David Brooks wrote: “The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby’s family will remember it in a few weeks time.”

Whatever those future researchers conclude, they may find it a curious setback for the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of the press and, perhaps most of all, plain-spoken honesty in public discourse.