What can one say about the Libby soft-pardon. Is Bush trying to set some record as most despised president ever?
No. The most likely reason to rescue Libby from jail-time by clemency is to keep him quiet. There was the danger that Libby, staring at a cell wall, would feel some urge to talk to Fitz.
Not really pardoning him now helps to let Libby keep the right to pledge the fifth at least as long as the legal appeal process is kept alive. In early 2009 a full pardon will be done and the media, congress and voters will not care anymore.
Essentially Bush is protecting Cheney and himself through the presidential power to pardon someone. That is obstruction of justice.
But the whole Bush/Cheney administration, selected by a dubious legal ruling in 2000, with its war of aggression on Iraq, the tapping of domestic phone calls in ignorance of the FISA law, the corruption of the Justice Department and some thousand things we don’t know about is essentially one big long experience in obstruction of justice.
This is not a defect of the Bush/Cheney administration, its a feature.
The clapping on the right for the Libby clemency shows that their base just loves this. It may even lift Bush’s poll ratings.