The president has since indicated he intended to go by the book in granting
what few pardons he’d hand out—considering only requests that had first been
reviewed by the Justice Department under a series of publicly available
guidelines.

Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web
site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a
nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a
period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement
(whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the
Justice Web site.

Moreover, in weighing whether to recommend a pardon, U.S. attorneys are
supposed to consider whether an applicant is remorseful. “The extent to which a
petitioner has accepted responsibility for his or her criminal conduct and made
restitution to ... victims are important considerations. A petitioner should be
genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication,” the Justice Web site
states.

Of course, there is nothing that requires Bush to follow these guidelines
in reviewing a pardon for Libby (whose lawyer, Ted Wells, stated on the
courthouse steps Tuesday that he intended to push for a retrial, adding that he
has “every confidence that Mr. Libby will be vindicated.”) As Love, the former
pardon attorney, points out, “the president can do whatever he wants.” Both
Clinton and Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush (who pardoned Casper
Weinberger among other Iran-contra figures), bear that out.

Still, Bush himself publicly reaffirmed his determination to stick to
the Justice pardon guidelines as recently as last month. In a Feb. 1 interview
with Fox News anchor Neal Cavuto, Bush was asked about whether he would pardon
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted
of shooting a Mexican drug dealer who was fleeing across the border into Mexico.
Their case has become a cause celebre for many conservatives and anti-immigrant
activists who believe it symbolizes the federal government’s lack of aggressive
enforcement of border controls. Fueled by CNN immigration critic Lou Dobbs and
Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, supporters of the two former agents have
been flooding the White House with e-mails and phone calls seeking pardons for
Ramos and Compean.

Bush’s response in Cavuto’s inquiry was telling. He repeatedly pointed to
the Justice Department pardon process to explain how he would make his
decision.

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And
there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he
has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to
“look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you
saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a
pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed,
so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president
answered.