Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I was with him until the last paragraph, which seems to say something like, "He shouldn't have had to face the perjury trap because the press thought what he was doing was okay at the time." Since when are these things decided by what the press thinks is cool? Arrogant conclusion, if you ask me.

eta: Plus, what Greedy said.

Kinsley's last paragraph:

• So as much as I dislike the war in Iraq, as much as I dislike President Bush, as much as I expect that I would dislike Mr. Libby if I ever met him, I feel that he should not have had to face a perjury trap: the choice between prison for lying, or prison for his role in a set of transactions that the press regards as not merely O.K. but sacrosanct. In fact, if journalists had a more reasonable view about this, the reporters whom Mr. Libby tried to peddle this story to would have said, “Look, outing C.I.A. agents is bad and we are not going to help you do it anonymously.” I bet that today, commuted sentence and all, Mr. Libby wishes they had done just that.

Kinsley would always rather say something clever and counterintuitive than repeat what someone else is saying, so his angle on this issue is to duck whether the commutation is right or wrong, or whether Libby should have been prosecuted or convicted, and instead to tell reporters that their views that leaking is sacrosanct are unreasonable. Getting the NYT to run it is the icing on the cake.