Trump Is Pardoning Scooter LibbyNobody quite knows why, but Dick Cheney’s chief of staff is finally getting the pardon his boss unsuccessfully begged George W. Bush to supply.
Rupert’s Fingers Already Closing Around the Heart of the ‘Journal’MEDIA
• Rupert Murdoch won’t officially take over the Journal until tomorrow, but he’s already dipped his tentacles deep into the paper. Rumor has it the Journal will dismiss two or three dozen people, to be replaced with Rupe’s cronies, and then go on a hiring spree. Oh, and apparently Murdoch briefly considered dropping “Wall Street” from the title. Tells you something about where the paper’s headed. [NYT]
• Sadly, Jane Pratt won’t actually be starring in a reality-TV show titled American Ugly, as we reported yesterday. C’mon Jane, don’t you love us? [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• New York Post “Metro” editor Dan Colarusso, whom Col Allan praised as “a quintessential New Yorker,” walked out of the newsroom and quit yesterday. No word on why, but seems pretty quintessential to us. [Runnin’ Scared/VV]
20-person poll
Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence, New Yorkers Shrug
The Times is indignant, Gawker is indignant — hell, we’re even feeling a little indignant — that President Bush commuted convicted perjurer Scooter Libby’s 30-month prison sentence yesterday afternoon. “I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said yesterday. He continued: “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive,” which is basically the opposite of respecting the verdict. (He also said back in 2003, when the Plame leak first came to light, that “if there is a leak out of my administration and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.” Just not too harshly.) But we wondered: Are average New Yorkers indignant, too? A quick 20-person poll later — our interns asked twenty passersby in front of the office on Madison Avenue — it seems they’re not, or at least not as much as we’d hoped. Damn. Questions and tallies after the jump.
it just happened
Scooter Libby Will Not See the Aspens Turn
Is it gauche that seeing this headline just made us smile a bit? Is it even gaucher that we started wondering (hoping?) which Bushie might next go to jail? Also: Do you think Judy Miller will visit him in prison?
Libby Gets 30 Months in Prison in CIA Leak Case [NYT]
in other news
Scooter Libby, Convict and — Soon — Subject
The hottest new almost-trend in publishing: political insta-books, like the Scooter Libby tome commissioned today — a day after his conviction — and due in bookstores next month. For decades there have been successful fast-tracked paperbacks on all sorts of light topics from Star Wars releases to the Pitt-Aniston marriage. The announcement of The United States vs. I. Lewis Libby — to be written be a real reporter, National Journal’s Murray Waas and published by Barnes & Noble’s nonfiction imprint — comes only a week after news of a Barack Obama insta-book, the first about the presidential candidate (he’s written two well-regarded memoirs), delivered only a month after he announced his candidacy. All we need now is one more example, and it’s a genuine, certified trend. Doesn’t any writer have anything he wants to say about Sam Brownback?
BN Imprint Rushes Libby Book to Stores [Galleycat/Mediabistro]
it just happened
Scooter Libby: Guilty
Aaaaand he’s guilty: Dick Cheney’s ex-chief of staff and noted erotica author Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been found responsible for obstructing the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. The jury’s deliberations took ten days. We hope it will take less time for Libby to finish up his internal deliberations and sell everyone he’s ever worked for down the river in exchange for a little less time at Club Fed. As the man himself wrote in his eloquent letter to Judith Miller, the aspens are turning.
