Libby, Pardons but, Sorry, no Paris Hilton

While we are all anticipating President Bush's decision to grant a full, unconditional pardon to Scooter Libby, there is some interesting reading to do on the pardon power here. Margaret Colgate Love, a former U.S. Pardon Attorney who was generous enough to provide some commentary for this blog earlier (see post here), has written a piece entitled "Reinventing the President's Pardon Power." The piece (twenty pages) is a very smooth and informative read and it can be downloaded (.pdf) in its entirety. While generally taking a critical view of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence, Love suggests the President's decision can be "redeemed" if it "marks the beginning of a discussion about the role of pardon in our justice system, and in our national politics." The article offers suggestions for the contours of such a discussion.