Nearly everybody–everybody in my email bag, I mean–agrees with me in liking Duncan Hunter’s turning ‘round the question about pardoning the Libby guy. How about pardoning Compean & Ramos, asked Hunter? (Those are the Border Patrol agents railroaded into 10-year jail sentences by Bush and Gonzales for having too vigorously pursued a Mexican drug smuggler.) Hoo-ah, said I. Except that here’s one dissident chiding me for not standing up for Libby. Isn’t injustice injustice? he asks. Shouldn’t I be equally concerned about all miscarriages of justice, no matter who is the victim? Well, maybe I should, but I’m not, and neither are you. I think it’s an understood feature of Anglosphere politics that the very high rewards of office go with some nonzero risk of getting thrown in jail on charges trumped up by your opponents. After all, it happened to Britain’s very first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. (He actually did a spell as a prisoner in the Tower of London!) Libby’s operated near the top of the greasy pole. He has plenty of powerful friends. He’s never going to be in want of a few cushy 100K directorship sinecures, or the odd 20K speaking engagement. You won’t be seeing him on the supermarket line paying with food stamps. He’s played the High Game of national politics, and “Go to jail” is one of the cards you sometimes draw in that game. No big deal. For little guys like Compean and Ramos, though, jail time is a life killer. No 100K directorships for them. They were disgracefully treated by an administration that often seems to want the approval of the Mexican narco-elites more than the respect & admiration of its own citizens. They should get pardons. Libby? Heck, he’ll be all right, and a taste of low life might educate him some.