What Was Bush Thinking?

And just how extensively were Karl Rove or Vice President Cheney involved in those deliberations? Stolberg and Rutenberg write: "The process was delicate. Karl Rove, the chief White House strategist and one of Mr. Bush's closest and longest-serving aides, had been implicated in the leak investigation, and it was unclear how extensive a role he played in the deliberations. . . .

"Aides to the vice president have said he regarded Mr. Libby's conviction as a tragedy, but people close to Mr. Cheney said they did not know what conversations, if any, the vice president had with the president about the commutation decision."

No one has or will come out and say: "Yes, the president and the vice president talked about this." But the presumption has to be that they talked about it. In fact, the presumption should be that it was Cheney's decision.

Here's how Bill Plante reported it on the CBS Evening News: "And where's the vice president, Vice President Cheney, in all of this? Well, White House officials say they have no idea whether or not he tried to intervene on behalf of his long-time aide, Scooter Libby. As usual, the vice president left no fingerprints."

Amy Goldstein and Robert Barnes write in Wednesday's Washington Post: "President Bush held out the possibility yesterday that he eventually may pardon I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby as the White House sought to fend off Democratic outrage and conservative disappointment over the president's decision to commute the 30-month prison term of the vice president's former chief of staff. . . .

"'As to the future,' the president told reporters, 'I rule nothing in or nothing out.'

"Libby's defense team, however, indicated yesterday that the White House has provided ample help for now. William H. Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's attorneys, said a request for a pardon 'is not anything that is imminent. We are focusing on the appeals.'"

Questions the Press Should Ask

In Tuesday's column, Obstruction of Justice, Continued, I proposed some questions reporters should be asking, and encouraged you readers to send me more. I was deluged. Here are just a few:

* What if anything are you doing, Mr. President, to cause or encourage Libby to tell the truth? (Richard Tolin)

* How can you expect average Americans to believe that this was anything but a payoff to Libby for keeping silent? (Gloria S. Ross)

* When the president made all those remarks about finding the leaker and firing any one who leaked, didn't he already know who the leakers were? (Jim Domenico)

* Did the President examine other perjury and obstruction cases and the penalties resulting therefrom in reaching his conclusion that the punishment for Libby was "excessive"? Has the President directed his DOJ to survey other perjury and obstruction cases so that he would be able to commute other "excessive" penalties in the interests of justice? (Kevin Toh)