The Libby issue isn't something I know a lot about and I didn't expect I would ever write a diary on it from nine thousand miles away. But I thought the following foreign perspective opinion piece was worth sharing.
George W. Bush's latest actions on the Libby case are not exactly making a lot of front pages (print or internet) where I live. As I type this (around midday 3 July US time), I've just checked the web sites for two of the most widely read and respected newspapers in the country where I live (The Press and the New Zealand Herald) and could not find the word Libby on the front page or the opinion page at either site.
However, for neighboring Australians who want commentary in their local news, Greg Sheridan at The Australian has come to the rescue.
Here are extracts from his commentary on the topic.
Greg Sheridan: Scooter merits full pardon
Comment, The Australian, July 04, 2007
GEORGE W. Bush was absolutely right to commute Scooter Libby's prison sentence. He was only wrong in not providing a full pardon for Libby.
From that start, you can probably guess where the rest leads. After calling Libby's defense "entirely plausible" Sheridan writes:
And finally, it was allegedly all about keeping Plame's identity secret - but her husband, Joe Wilson, was writing New York Times opinion pieces screaming his denunciation of the Bush administration and outlining his CIA-directed involvement in the Niger case, before his wife's identity was leaked.
Now there's a nifty way to protect your wife's status as a covert operative.
Straight from the opening sentence, you had to know Wilson and Plame would be the ultimate targets of this commentary. He doesn't stop at one jab:
Wilson's own descriptions of his efforts in this regard - having cups of tea with friendly locals and some embassy staff at the US embassy in Niger - read more like Laurel and Hardy than James Bond. But as Wilson and his wife hammed it up for maximum media attention later, including a stylish cover photo on Vanity Fair, they didn't seem to be suffering too much.
... Plame played a key role in hiring her husband for the CIA junket to Niger.
... The whole thing is both an anti-Bush, liberal witch-hunt and a sign of how special prosecutors go completely nuts ...
Nice to see Australians are getting a fair and balanced account of the saga. Sheridan finishes as we would expect, by putting things in perspective - it's tears and tissue box time:
This travesty of a trial has already ruined Libby's life. The least he could expect from Bush is a modicum of loyalty.
For those curious to know more about Greg Sheridan, he is foreign editor of The Australian and has a brief wikipedia entry. I love this bit:
He is considered to be conservative, although with no declared political allegiance.
With writing like this, Greg, there's no need to declare a thing. It's loud and clear.
If you've read this far and are thinking "With that opinion piece, The Australian is probably the national flagship paper for right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch" ... you'd be exactly right.