The news media has moved on from in-depth analysis of the iPhone’s release to more pressing matters, like Al Gore III’s most recent arrest for speeding while stashing marijuana, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Soma, and Adderall. (Can’t you picture Li’l Gore  just blasting the second verse of “99 Problems” when he saw the flashing red-and-blue lights in his rear-view mirror?)

Why is this news? Everyone knows that that tree hugger Gore’s son is a pot-smoking hippie. I hope this story dies before Ann Coulter starts calling names and someone’s feelings get hurt.

Anyway, while the networks are getting every last bit out of this story, the editorial pages are keeping the Scooter Libby scandal afloat. Tony Snow wrote an op-ed in USA Today defending Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence as more than just helpin’ out a brotha. He artfully directed those attacking Bush to first speak to Mr. Clinton with the grace of a receptionist speaking with an angry and confused caller. (I just manned the phones for two hours at work so I have a bit of practice.)

The Constitution gives the president the power to grant clemency in a wide range of cases, at his discretion, with no restrictions. In the final hours of the Clinton administration, this unfettered authority was embodied in a mad rush to push through pardons with dizzying haste — 141 grants on Clinton's final day in office, part of 211 in the final nine weeks.
 

In Maureen Dowd’s chuckle-worthy column yesterday, she narrates what she imagines Hillary might say to Bill in a car ride through Iowa: 

“[T]here was that awkward moment when I said Bush should not have commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence because he was elevating cronyism over the rule of law, and there you were, Mr. Elevate-Cronyism-Over-The-Rule-of-Law, sitting on a stool right behind me in that look-at-me Crayola yellow shirt, reminding everyone of that passel of pardons you sneaked in under the wire, including one for that fugitive tax-evader Marc Rich, whose ex-wife was your fund-raiser and whose lawyer was — can it get any worse? — Scooter Libby!”

Back to Tony Snow’s bold attempt, which concludes:

[Bush] did what he does normally, and what makes those of us who work for him proud. He proceeded on the basis of principle, and arrived at a sound and just decision — knowing he would take hits in the court of public opinion, but also knowing he was doing the right thing.

You know we’re gonna have to get on you, Tony. People are saying Bush is putting himself above the law, just like “he does normally,” that he’s lying to the public, just like “he does normally,” and that he’s making a mockery of our government, just like “he does normally.” Your defense? “He did what he does normally.”

Our pals up at ThinkProgress have a nice post about an unanticipated consequence of the commutation:

[Defense attorneys are] using the so-called “Libby motion” to argue, “My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.” Subsequently, judges may have “reason to lighten sentences and undermining the goal of a more uniform justice system.”

Think they’ll let a suspected Hamas operative use the Libby defense?