Liberate Libby’s PSR

Say, did you notice who wrote the talking points for Tony Snow’s press briefing yesterday? The Probation office (only Snow makes the same mistake I did when I first talked about this, calling it the parole office–though I guess if you work for the guy who simply disappears all prison sentence, parole might come more easily to the tongue).

MR. SNOW:  Well, keep in mind that there is still — he doesrespect what the judge said, but he also respects what — I think if youtook a look at the trial record, at what the parole commissionrecommended, that what the parole commission recommended was highlyconsistent with what the President thought was an appropriate punishmenthere.

Q    Well, no, they talked about 16-plus months.

MR. SNOW:  No, that is — there’s a range of — what you’re takinga look — this gets very complicated.  You have obstruction of justice,and then you have mitigating factors that bumps it down.  And the bumpdown gets you, according, again, to the parole commission, to an areawhere it would be appropriate, it would be within acceptable guidelinesto have such things as home detention or probation.  Probation issomething that is going to be required in this case.

[snip]

MR. SNOW:  What I said was with the jury system.  But also, whatthe President did is also consistent with guidelines.  You need tounderstand the guideline argument better.  The question is, what are youusing as your baseline?  And the parole commission, which does this fora living, had recommended guidelines —

Q    But they recommended —

[snip]

Q    Does he think prison for perjury is excessive?

MR. SNOW:  — as did a parole board.

Over and over, Snow claims the "parole board" recommended precisely the same punishment that Bush ultimately decided upon, probation (though, as the surprisingly spiney press corpse point out, Snow has to assume that Libby would have been granted every single downward departure floated in the presentencing report).

I find it unbelievably suspicious that Snow is relying so heavily on the PSR to justify Bush’s action–because it appears to have been a complete hack-job, making arguments that embarrassed even Libby’s lawyers. So I’d like to call for publication of the PSR (with redaction of all the personal information save the financial information used to support some of its arguments, as noted below) so we can see the embarrassing logic behind Bush’s current justification for wiping away Libby’s prison sentence.