Law

I'm in the process of reviewing Tarleton Gillespie's Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture, which (so far) is a very smart look at an issue that's of great personal and professional interest to me. So rather than just scribble in the margins, I thought I'd drop random questions, observations and interesting factoids here as I work my way through the book.

I would say this is the first of many posts in a series, but hopefully there won't be too many -- the review itself is due soon...

President Bush's move to commute Scooter Libby's sentence comes as no surprise -- using presidential clemency when the crimes were committed within your own administration is unseemly, but it's hardly unprecedented.

And frankly, I won't lose any sleep over Libby's lack of jail time. A 30-month sentence struck me as excessive, too, and I wouldn't call a $250K fine "getting off easy."

What is troubling, however, is that Bush's sense of mercy doesn't seem to extend much beyond, well, Scooter Libby.