Scooter In The Dock

image credit: Vieux Montreal website

This is Old Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. Scooter and his cohorts have me thinking fondly again of places that aren't in the U.S. Of course, they have their share of low-lifes, too. Otherwise, they'd be willing to import more of ours, wouldn't they?

I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was sentenced to thirty months in prison and a $250,000 fine today. The overly-optimistic among us would probably conclude that a little justice was done today. My bet is: fat chance. He'll be pardoned before he gets within ten miles of a prison. Former Senator and current part-time actor and full time dimwit Fred Thompson, who if voters hold to their pattern will be our next President, has been shilling for a pardon for Libby for some time. Clearly, it's about time to pull the trigger, or Libby will almost certainly start cooperating with U.S. Attorneys by identifying Leaker Zero, the one who first identified Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent to Cheney. If that person was Cheney himself, then he certainly knew that her identity was a secret, and is either culpable for identifying her to Libby and others without explaining her status, or did it deliberately to cause Ms. Wilson's exposure.

And that pardon had better happen soon:

While numerous public officials have been investigated, charged and even convicted in the three decades since Watergate, they almost always avoid prison by appeal, plea bargain or pardon. But at the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton raised the possibility that he would order Libby to jail even while he pursues an appeal.

Libby sentenced to 30 months in prison

There's no way Libby is going to jail. If Judge Walton decides that Scooter's going to jail in a few weeks, the pardon will happen before Independence Day. Bet on it.

UPDATE: Think I'm cynical? Read Juan Cole on the topic. Here's a sample:

Libby was not charged with the leak, which was probably illegal and certainly grossly unethical. Since Valerie was undercover working against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially with regard to Iran, in running a deliberate leaking operation against her Libby was essentially functioning as an agent of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

...

The same is true for Cheney himself and for Karl Rove, Bush's political adviser. They are all traitors who betrayed an undercover US operative who was attempting to work against the ayatollahs in Tehran.

Hmmm. Parlez vous quebecois?