Get Out of Jail Free

Of course, the big news today was the Grant of Executive Clemency from the White House that gave amnesty to the Vice President's former Chief of Staff on obstruction of justice charges related to the exposing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Behind the scenes, of course, the Libby Legal Defense Trust at scooterlibbey.com has been busy lining up endorsements from prominent Republicans. It is important to note that such sites are not only built for the wealthy and powerful and that many defendants use the Web to mount their cases and plea for leniency in a new form of extra-juridical forensic rhetoric.

Post-commutation, the home page for the site has been redesigned to emphasize a simple expression of gratitude for the President's decision. Yet earlier today the website showed Libby shaking hands with Afghan president Hamid Karzai , as though Libby were still an active member of the Executive Branch, participating in international policy no less. As a resident grammarian, I couldn't help but notice a split infinitive ("Scooter continues to aggressively appeal his conviction") and an awkward comparative ("the Executive Committee of the Libby Legal Defense trust is supporting him stronger than ever") in their few lines of prose.

Update: As Sivacracy pal Ann Bartow points out, my UCI colleague Scott Eric Kaufman has a nice post about possible Libby talking points at Acephalous. Kaufman has also been expanding his multimedia empire into the realm of podcasting of late.