RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Bushgate

The Clinton-Did-It Flimflam

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 6, 2007; 12:32 PM

The White House, which has been so adept at distracting the media from critical issues -- "Oh, look! A shiny penny!" as one of my readers puts it -- tossed out the shiniest penny of all yesterday.

Rather than address the most weighty criticism of President Bush's decision to commute former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's prison sentence -- that it was part and parcel of a longtime cover-up of White House misdeeds -- press secretary Tony Snow lashed out at former President Bill Clinton and his would-be president wife for actions that date back more than six years.


Sen. Hillary Clinton has been among the foremost critics accusing Bush of commuting Libby's sentence in order to avoid further inquiry into his own behavior. The commutation "was clearly an effort to protect the White House," she told the Associated Press earlier this week. "There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

Snow let loose in yesterday morning's gaggle, calling attention to numerous controversial grants of clemency that Bill Clinton issued in the closing hours of his presidency in 2001. "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," Snow said. Snow's deputy, Scott Stanzel, took up the cudgel at the televised mid-day briefing: "The hypocrisy demonstrated by Democratic leaders on this issue is rather startling," he said.

It's certainly hard to argue that President Clinton didn't abuse the pardon process. But Bush's pledge back in 2000 was to restore ethics to the White House -- not engage in he-did-it-too defense of his own misconduct.

And furthermore, there is an ethical chasm between Clinton's pardons -- unseemly as they were -- and Bush's decision to grant clemency to someone involved in an investigation of his own White House. (See my Tuesday column, Obstruction of Justice, Continued.)

As it happens, the previous granting of clemency that is most analogous to what Bush did dates back neither to the Clinton or even the Nixon era, but to Bush's father's presidency.

In 1992, on the eve of his last Christmas in the White House, George H.W. Bush pardoned former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others for their conduct related to the Iran-Contra affair, in which he himself was also loosely implicated.

As David Johnston reported in the New York Times at the time, independent prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh was livid. "Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President's action, charging that 'the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.'"

Added Walsh: "In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed official investigations."