Aides Say No Pardon for Libby Irked Cheney

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — Dick Cheney spent his final days as vice president making a furious last-ditch effort to secure a pardon for his onetime chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., leaving him at odds with former President George W. Bush on a matter of personal loyalty as the two moved on to private life, according to several former officials.

The officials said Tuesday that Mr. Cheney’s lobbying campaign on behalf of Mr. Libby was far more intense than previously known, with the vice president bringing it up in countless one-on-one conversations with the president. They said Mr. Bush was unyielding to the end, already frustrated by a deluge of last-minute pardon requests from other quarters.

The dispute underscored the raw feelings of Mr. Cheney and other supporters of Mr. Libby, who believed that he was mistreated by prosecutors and ill served by a president who, in their view, failed to return Mr. Libby’s loyalty and sacrifice.

And it points up the distance said to have grown between the two men as their worldviews, once largely in sync, seemed increasingly to diverge in their second term as Mr. Bush took a less hawkish stance.

For Mr. Cheney, the failure to win a pardon was a stinging loss that led him to offer a rare public rebuke of Mr. Bush’s judgment, saying of Mr. Libby in an interview with The Weekly Standard last month that “I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon,” and that “I disagree with President Bush’s decision.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/us/politics/18cheney.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[antigop]

1. So why didn't Bush pardon Libby? n/t

[louis-t]

2. Now we know how Chee-ney hurt his back.

He was so mad at stupidface, he threw his pen acrooss the room.