President Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby yesterday, sparing Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff 2 1/2 years in prison after a federal appeals court had refused to let Libby remain free while he appeals his conviction for lying to federal investigators.

Another prime example of the "heads up our asses" administration we have going here. Let's take a step back and look at what's been going on here:

June 23, 2003: Libby meets with Times reporter Judith Miller. During the meeting, Miller says, Libby tells her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA. Libby denies saying that.

July 7, 2003: Libby meets with then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Fleischer says Libby tells him that Wilson's wife works at the CIA and that the information is "hush hush." Libby denies that.

July 8, 2003: Libby meets with Miller again. She recalls Libby saying he believes Wilson's wife works for the CIA. Libby denies telling her that.

July 12, 2003: Libby speaks to Cooper and confirms to him that he has heard that Wilson's wife was involved in sending Wilson on the trip. Libby also speaks to Miller and discusses Wilson's wife and says that she works at the CIA.

March 5 and March 24, 2004: Libby testifies before the grand jury. In a tape of his testimony, Libby tells jurors that he 'forgot' the information about Plame working for the CIA until he heard it from Russert. Anything he told reporters, he says, was just chatter passed on from that conversation.

Oct. 28, 2005: Libby is indicted on five counts: obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and two counts of perjury.

March 6, 2007: Jurors return guilty verdicts on charges of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI. A not guilty verdict was returned on one count of lying to an FBI agent.

June 5, 2007: U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton sentences Libby to 2 1/2 years in prison.

July 2, 2007 12:19 p.m. EDT: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit announces its decision refusing to delay Libby's prison sentence.

July 2, 2007 5:25 p.m. EDT: President Bush commutes Libby's sentence, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term. Bush leaves intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby.

(thanks to washingtonpost.com for the timeline of events.)

So, here we have good ol' Scooter blabbing the identity of Valerie Plame on more than one occasion to more than one person, and then denying he did that. Unfortunately for Scoot, the jury believes otherwise and sentences him to a prison sentence. Libby whines a lot, tries to get them to delay his sentence so he can file a half-assed appeal while sipping gin and tonics in his pool, and throws a fit when he hears that he'll end up in the can after all. Bush, being a good ol' honest boy himself, thinks Libby's delayed sentence will have an adverse effect on the gin industry and overturns his conviction.

Okay, so maybe it didn't go exactly that way. But based on Bush's previous reasoning for such decisions, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought, "Well hey now, if I didn't have to go for jail for all those drunk driving and drug possession charges, then why should Scoot have to be punished for a slip of the tongue?" (May I add a "slip of the tongue" usually means it happened once, and the owner of said tongue immediately regrets saying it… but in Scooter's case, he may as well have typed it on one of those scrolling LED belts and flaunted it around D.C.)

Anyway, so Bush abuses his power, commutes Libby's sentence, and then acts all surprised because everyone (well, everyone except his wife, Cheney, and those who have an IQ lower than 75) is pissed at him for letting the slimeball walk:

At a time when his popularity is as low as any president's in modern history, Bush's action also defied public opinion. Shortly after Libby was convicted in March, three national public opinion polls found that seven in 10 Americans said they would oppose a pardon of Libby.

This whole saga reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman goes on the Maury Povich show pretending he's an out-of-control kid in order to win prize money:

"Maury, I am out of control. Yeah, I use drugs. I can do what I want, bitch! I don't go to school and I kill people! What-evah! I'll do what I want!"

So Bush… what-evah! He does what he wants!

"Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today." -John Edwards