A Defining Choice for The GOP

That's why the leading GOP candidates ducked the pardon question at their debate this week, though in revealing ways. John McCain was crisp ("He's going through an appeal process. We've got to see what happens here."), while Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney offered rambling responses aimed at sounding pro-Libby without committing themselves.

Giuliani declared Libby's sentence "way out of line" and insisted there was "no underlying crime involved." But he chose the conditional when pressed: "I would see if it fit the criteria for pardon. I'd wait for the appeal."

For his part, Romney said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald "clearly abused prosecutorial discretion" but then used all the classic dodges: "It's worth looking at that. I will study it very closely, if I'm lucky enough to be president, and I'd keep that option open."

Fred Thompson, who many conservatives hope will enter the race, has been a leader of Libby's legal defense fund. Perhaps ironically for the man who plays a prosecutor on "Law & Order," Thompson has unequivocally endorsed a pardon.

Thompson's clarity may pressure other Republicans to support a pardon -- Giuliani seemed almost there during the debate -- but their decisions would come at a high cost. At times, a single legal case can come to embody an entire controversy, even an entire era. To support pardoning Scooter Libby has come to mean endorsing an approach to politics and a way of governing that most Americans have come to reject.

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