Marion Jones v. Scooter Libby

In today's New York Times, this article discusses the recent 6-month sentence of track star Marion Jones. Late to hop on the band wagon, the author notes:

No, the sanctimonious call for jail time doesn’t come easily when the government can so blithely spring one of its own (see President Bush’s commuting of Scooter Libby’s 30-month sentence for four counts of perjury in the Valerie Plame case).

The author, of course, does not offer one modicum of evidence to suggest that the Scooter Libby commutation in any way made anything more difficult for anyone. And with good reason. No so-called "Libby motion" has ever worked, and there is no reason whatsoever to think that one ever will. The attempt to spread Scooter Libby all over ever criminal case is as dumb as it was the first time it was suggested. Libby has nothing whatsoever to do with Marc Rich, Roger Clinton, Peter Yarrow, the FALN terrorists, the individuals who shot up the House of Representatives (and hit five congressmen) ... or Marion Jones.

What may have made things difficult is Jones' behavior. As she put it:

“Yes, I’ve made mistakes by lying. And I’ve admitted to these mistakes much later than I should have ... I truly hope that people will learn from my mistakes."

The critic will, of course, compound the whine, "so she admitted guilt and will be going to prison while Libby did not and has his sentence commuted." Admittedly, there is no answer to such reasoning that can be spelled out in an equally catchy sound-bite. The merchants of junior-high rhetoric are going to win that round. Ironically, they are the same people who constantly remind us that innocent people are convicted by the justice system all of the time! Perhaps, one day, when the sentence is long behind her, they will also claim Jones was forced to lie about lying, so as to satisfy "Scooter Libby justice."