Arguments of convenience and situational ethics are so pervasive in politics in general and this administration in particular that it won't be hard to point out half a dozen different contradictions with philosophies professed at other times. Whatever happened to being "tough on crime" or the cries against "legislating from the bench" (as a more general expression defending the separation of powers), for example?

No, what stinks to the highest heaven (which is saying a lot in this foul odor fest) is the violation of a universally accepted principle -- avoidance of conflict of interest. Compared to this, a judge writing off his wife's parking ticket would look like a modern day Solomon. Libby was widely perceived as a fall guy who took a blow to cover his bosses' ass, and his conviction a symbolic slap on the administration's modus operandi. Bush didn't pardon Libby, he pardoned himself in effect.

Without cronyism, influence peddling, the help of Daddy's friends, conflicts of interest, etc. Georgie would be a dog trainer in Waco, Texas. But what can you expect? Ron Paul is right. The Republican Party is the party of corporate fascism. Not that the Democrats are much better. That's why corporate criminals like Rupert Murdoch give money to both parties.

Two problems seem apparent in the Libby case:

1) As noted here, "Bush pardoned himself". This team found themselves in a trap that they had already considered a scenario for. "Unfortunately", for "the good of the mission", Libby had to be sacrificed. It was just a matter of timing.

2) The legal system is not working. While my sympathies for Libby are limited only to my reading that he has been used (and I think he realised this too late), the prosecutors were unable to make a case stick on the clear points where law and principle were violated. The increasing abuse of technicalities and dubious points of precedent undermines justice. If there is a conviction, the public has every right to expect to understand why. If clear charges cannot be prosecuted, then there is a problem with the judicial system.

There are countless cases of this.

A couple points I would dispute:

-Libby was used. If Libby was used, he was an enthusiastic participant. This was a guy who had a reputation for playing games with the press, lawyering topics to the point of obfuscation, and generally believing he was above the law because what he was doing was right. In other words, he thought he was smarter than he actually was.

-Prosecutors were unable to make case stick and had to rely on technicalities and dubious points of precedence. That's a lot harder to come up with a simple answer. Both sides played the technicality game as well as more distasteful maneuvers on the part of the defense. However, what smoked Libby was witness after witness after witness coming up to the stand and basically refuting his story. That's not a technicality, that's proving someone is a liar.

-Lack of clear charges. I am totally mystified. The charges were pretty clear. Libby told investigators that he hadn't heard about Plame until a certain date and then the investigators found out he was discussing it well before the date he specified. You'd think that's the first thing he would have figured out. The fact that he couldn't remember who told him or that he obviously made no real attempt to remember such important information that has had such a huge impact on his life is simply not credible.

-The fact that no one was charged with outing plame has more to do with a poorly written law than a lack of offense. Congress has always had a bad habit of sloppy law writing that forces agencies to figure out what they mean and I suspect it is, in part, deliberate in order to give them a scapegoat to blame when unpopular things need to be done. I am still uncertain as to how that classified information suddenly got declassified since it was originally considered "secret" information. Revealing classified information in that regard should have been a crime. It is fairly common knowledge that the bush administration classifies its toilet paper "top secret" and routinely plays those types of games with sensitive government information so while I am still uncertain, I am not surprised.