Typically, sentences do not commute. But sometimes they do. Consider:
Scooter is a liar. Liar is a scooter.
Both equally true, as convicted perjurer Scooter Libby manages to zip past his required jail time, with a little help from his friends in high places. (I find it hard to believe that I'm the first to think of this joke. Or perhaps I'm just the first to admit it in public.) The deep, inscrutable irony here, of course, is that George W. Bush hates to pardon people or commute their sentences. Not his job to overrule a jury, he proudly proclaims. Even if we're talking about a mentally retarded inmate sentenced to death by a jury that never had a chance to hear mitigating evidence. Those inmates could count themselves lucky if W didn't openly mock them. But Scooter was special; the usual formalities were readily dispensed with in this case. Or perhaps Bush has simply experienced a change of heart, and will now start freeing all sorts of unjustly convicted prisoners. He has plenty of opportunity; the U.S. has by far the world's largest prison population, over two million, and it's growing faster than ever. Over a third are estimated to be nonviolent drug offenders, typically punished by preposterous mandatory sentencing laws. I might point out that the impact of such laws does not seem to fall equally on members of all racial and economic groups, but that could seem shrill. Folks who would, on ideological grounds, tend to be sympathetic towards the Republican party are struggling with the challenge presented to them by the Bush administration. It's perfectly possible to be in favor of tax cuts, Social Security privatization, and the war in Iraq, and yet recognize that this administration represents a vortex of corruption, venality, and incompetence that the country hasn't had to suffer through in at least the last hundred years. Bush's fondness for signing statements that declare his intention to follow the laws passed by Congress only when he wants to would typically be grounds all by itself for honest conservatives to wash their hands of the guy. But so many people still find it hard to do. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy (where one of their co-bloggers, Randy Barnett, was actually a co-author on a brief submitted on behalf of Libby), both Orin Kerr and Eugene Volokh can only look at the President's decision to commute Libby's sentence and shake their heads in disgust. But their commenters, not so much. These are people who used to think that perjury was bad, but now seem to have softened their stance, characterizing (Republican) investigator Patrick Fitzgerald's prosecution of Libby as politcal and partisan (except that it's not). Republicans should be thanking their lucky stars for the 22nd Amendment, and by extension FDR. Can you imagine if Bush were allowed to run for a third term? The acrimonious split between his die-hard supporters and conservatives with any sort of remaining integrity would tear the party apart, possibly for good.
