Al Sharpton looked queasy on MSNBC yesterday as he learned that President Bush had finally gone and pulled Lewis Libby off the Bureau of Prisons guest list. Perhaps Sharpton was hoping his crusade to re-incarcerate Paris Hilton had shown the President and his handlers that “there seems to be a different criminal justice system for some than others.”

Meantime, Lexis-Nexis must be racking up huge fees as interns in campaign cubicles scramble to find any statements ever made about the Libby case, compare them to what was said about Clinton’s impeachment, and cross-check against Watergate or other uses of the presidential clemency power. Google works just fine for those of us with job descriptions that don’t include the words “opposition research.”

There are so many instances of Republican hypocrisy, hilarity and high-handedness on this issue. Here’s one of my new favorites:

Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, longtime friend of Dick, took a particularly dim view of Clinton’s perjury, according to a Sally Quinn column in the Washington Post: “Did he raise his right hand and lie about it and then lie again? Lying under oath—that to me is all there is. Did this man, whether he is head of the hardware store or the president or applying for a game and fishing license, raise his hand and say, ‘This is the truth’?”

A kinder, gentler Simpson, a member of the Iraq Study Group, has now discovered that the veracity of fishing licenses is far more important than lying about machinations of government at the highest level. He joined the Libby Defense Fund and was one of the Solons who wrote to Libby’s sentencing judge, pleading for mercy: “During my years of friendship with Scooter, I have found a singular attribute that will always remain undiminished. That is the attribute of loyalty—unswerving, unselfish, unwavering loyalty.”

The Democrats aren’t above winking and nodding at a little lying, as their curious old Philanderer in Chief can attest. Yesterday’s tragedy is not that a liar got off the hook with a slap on the wrist, but that the President’s action makes it less likely than ever that we’ll get a full accounting of all the Bush-Cheney shenanigans. As we’ve heard over and over, “Libby knows where the bodies are buried.” In addition to knowing the undisclosed location of White House emails and visitor lists, he might know the cosmic explanation for how anybody who works at Halliburton is able to sleep at night. Information may want to be free, but Libby has lost his last incentive to make it so. In a breathtakingly self-serving use of his Constitutional prerogatives, The Decider decided to put Libby’s unswerving loyalty ahead of even the slightest glint of accountability for his administration.

In addition to covering his own rear end, our compassionately conservative President thought Libby’s sentence was just too harsh, never mind that it fit within the sentencing guidelines that his tough-on-crime party is always looking to stiffen. Bush’s statement commuting the prison sentence claimed that Libby was left with a harsh punishment, including disgrace, family stress, and a large fine. The significance of the fine is in doubt, given the amounts of money raised by his defense fund. As for the disgrace and stress, they do go with the felonious territory.

We incarcerate far too many non-violent offenders in this country, and there’s an argument to be made that a stiff fine and community service at Air America would be sufficient punishment for this GOP felon. But when similarly situated people without Cheney connections are sent packing into the jails, it does seem, in a day full of surprises, that the Reverend Al was right all along: we do have two criminal justice systems, and neither one is serving us well.

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Foster Landis has a law degree from the University of Southern California. He lives in the Midwest.

Tags: al sharpton, presidential pardon, scooter libby