Peter Wallsten is the Los Angeles Times reporter whom I saluted last year in "A class act." Today Peter writes about how the fate of Lewis Libby "has thrown a twist into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, forcing candidates to make an awkward choice between loyalty to a party stalwart and the GOP's long-held reverence for the rule of law." Peter's article is "Libby pardon poses quandary for GOP hopefuls" and covers not only positions expressed by the Republican presidential candidates Tuesday evening, but also the editorials by National Review and Bill Kristol that we noted yesterday.

Peter frames his article on a false dichotomy between a pardon and the rule of law. Yet pardons do not disturb the rule of law; they are part of the rule of law. Moreover, a pardon would not exonerate Libby; only reversal of the conviction would do that. In today's New York Times story on the same subject, David Frum captures the absurdity of the Libby prosecution:

Already, major conservative and neoconservative organizations, magazines and Web sites are expressing vexation that Mr. Bush has not granted clemency to Mr. Libby, who they say was unfairly railroaded for an initial leak that has now been traced to Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state.

“I don’t understand it,” said David Frum, a former speech writer for Mr. Bush who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group with close ties to the White House. “A lot of people in the conservative world are weighted down by the sheer, glaring unfairness here.”

It seems to me the kind of unfairness for which the Constitution grants presidents a plenary pardon power, extending even to cases of treason. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 74 regarding the unlimited power of pardon: "Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed." Hamilton explained:

The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind.

Hamilton's thoughts perfectly frame the issue as it presents itself to President Bush and the candidates who address the issue as it confronts Bush.

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