neo-conservatives

Nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq is a failed ideological experiment

The recent edition of Time magazine contains a story describing the last days of the Bush-Cheney Administration. By then, Dick Cheney had developed a near-singular focus on obtaining a pardon for his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby. The issue was one of only a few on which George W. Bush disagreed with with his second-in-command. Libby had been found guilty of lying to investigators looking into the Valerie Plaine incident, in which Plame was outted as a CIA agent by officials in the administration. Cheney’s aide was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and to pay a fine of $250,000. President Bush, who had earlier vowed that he would fire anyone involved in the incident, decided to commute Libby’s prison term, to much criticism from the Democrats and the press. His decision nonetheless upheld the conviction, leaving Libby, a former high-profile lawyer, facing permanent disbarment.