The commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence by President Bush on Monday has created the predictable furor in the media and the partisan rhetoric by politicians that we have all come to expect. But the complaints about the commutation of Libby’s sentence have not been terribly fair for several reasons, in my opinion.

Although a number of politicians and commentators have attacked the president’s act as lawless or as contravening the rule of law, in fact, President Bush’s actions were completely within his legal prerogative as president. The notion of executive clemency stretches back a thousand years or more and was deliberately incorporated into the presidential office by the Founding Fathers.

Alexander Hamilton wrote that “Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed.” Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Libby case, properly said in his statement that he did not challenge the president’s power to grant clemency.

The law is absolutely clear on this point: The president has the right to commute a sentence, even if his reasons are political. We should not forget that other presidents, including Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, freely exercised their powers to grant pardons and commute sentences.

It is also not insignificant that President Bush chose to commute a portion of Libby’s sentence and not grant him a pardon. He remains subject to a large fine, to the indignities of two year’s probation and to living the rest of his life as a convicted felon, a status which will, almost certainly, cause him to lose his license to practice law.

Should Libby go to prison? The answer to that is not to be found in the law. A jury found Libby guilty of perjury, a serious crime, especially for a man who held high governmental office. There are many who would like to see Libby go to prison, but others believe that he deserves a full pardon.

My own sense is that the debate over Libby is less about Libby the man and his crime than it is about Libby as a symbol of a highly unpopular administration and the administration’s cavalier attitude toward the law. But Libby is not a symbol. He is a flesh-and-blood human being and is as much entitled to being treated as such before the law as anyone else.

Whatever may be President Bush’s reasons for commuting Libby’s sentence and eliminating the prison term, it remains an act of executive clemency for which no reason need be given. That is the point of executive clemency, as Alexander Hamilton understood. It is an act of clemency that many other guilty individuals, including former President Richard Nixon and convicted financier Marc Rich, have also enjoyed.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about President Bush’s act on Monday. On the one hand, I believe that Libby’s trial was problematic in several respects. On the other hand, I would prefer to see those problems litigated in an appeal. But I would hate to think that anyone would attack the president’s right to grant clemency. It is an essential part of our governmental and legal system. Shakespeare said it best in “The Merchant of Venice”:

The quality of mercy is not strained,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

We ought to all remember that. One never knows when we may need that mercy ourselves.