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Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

Former CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg, who spent two decades covering Washington for the network, has passed along his analysis of the lessons of the Libby trial. Below, in question and answer form, he takes us through his conclusions. Think of this as an "Outside Voices" column, and bear in mind that the opinions expressed are Engberg's, not Public Eye's.

QUESTION #1 – Why did Vice President Cheney order Scooter Libby to conduct the smear campaign against the Wilsons when he could have easily picked up the phone and called a few Administration-friendly reporters, like Bob Novak and Judy Miller, and do the leaking himself?

ANSWER – Cheney knew he needed what in intelligence work is called a “cutout,” because he understood perfectly well that revealing the identity of a CIA undercover agent was morally wrong and almost certainly illegal. The juror who said Scooter was a “fall guy” had it right. But doesn’t that make Cheney both a shameless manipulator and a terrible coward?

The premeditated nature of the attack on Joe Wilson can be assessed further by the fact that Libby, given Cheney’s direction, did not peddle the Plame outing to an obvious Administration fugleman such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. The carefully conceived plot called for a Wilson-Plame revelation that looked like real journalism, not propaganda.

QUESTION #2 – Is there any group that stands lower in public esteem than professional journalists?

ANSWER – Yes, defense lawyers for indicted government officials. Attempts by Scooter’s legal beagles to belittle the memories and honesty of journalists such as Tim Russert and Matt Cooper to influence the jury blew up in their faces. But the fact that reporters forget dates, lose notebooks and can’t decipher their own notes, all well established by the trial testimony, is not going to put any kind of sheen on the Washington press. They looked pathetic, as Cheney might say, “Big time.”

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Not since the death of Anna Nicole have I seen the cbsnews.com newsroom as worked up as it was at noon today, when the "Scooter" Libby verdict was announced. In our email inboxes over the past few days, we've gotten regular updates about what was going on with the jury – they're reviewing a note! – and speculation on when a verdict might be announced. Now that the news has finally broken, it's dominating the cable networks and news Web sites, and analysis is already popping up all over the place.

This reaction has driven home to me a point a few folks have made as this whole thing has moved forward: Namely, that the media may care a whole lot more about the Libby trial than most Americans do. The Libby case, with its connections to the Plame affair and Martha Stewart-ish verdict, is pretty complicated, and I have to wonder how much people really understand (or care about) the details. Reporters paid close attention to the case, since it opened up questions about reportorial privilege and offered up scenes like NBC's Tim Russert being called to testify. But it's hard to imagine that the average American took much from this case beyond some vague sense that there is corruption in Washington – a revelation that surely doesn't come as all that much of a surprise.

…And he's guilty on 4 out of 5 counts. Read all about it here.

UPDATE: Watch the press conference here.

For reporters covering the CIA leak probe, the other shoe dropped today with news that White House aide Karl Rove would not be indicted. No shoes were dropped yesterday, however, during another pre-trial hearing on the Scooter Libby case – one of several that have taken place since the former vice president’s aide was indicted. Covering the Libby case generally entails “mostly a lot of dull moments” and a few very exciting ones, says CBS News Producer Beverley Lumpkin, who told me a little bit about what it's been like covering the case so far. “Despite the yammering and bloviating of several bloggers over the past several days, no news was committed” at yesterday’s hearing, Lumpkin wrote in an e-mail.

Much of the content from yesterday's hearing was likely only of interest to those journalists who are familiar with the most arcane of legal procedures, Lumpkin said -- and there aren't too many of those. The issues discussed were simply “much too inside,” said Lumpkin. “They’re not the kind of thing anyone will run off and file a report on.” While yesterday’s hearing didn’t make news, “it’s still important to know what’s going on,” said Lumpkin.

Indeed, yesterday’s hearing offered at least some indication that something newsworthy might be happening in the near future. Lumpkin described this series of events in an e-mail following the hearing:

After the Libby hearing there was some mystery as Fitzgerald was led away down hallways and through secret locked doors by the administrative assistant to Chief Judge Thomas Hogan. Three intrepid reporters followed along and soon determined the two had disappeared behind a door that leads to both a private dining room for the judges, and a back stairwell that goes both up to the judges' chambers and down to the parking garage. So maybe Fitzgerald was being taken to lunch? Or shown how to get to the garage without being further accosted by unruly reporters? Or was he being led upstairs to have a secret meeting with the Chief Judge? That possibility is potentially newsworthy, because the Chief Judge oversees all grand jury matters. Was Fitzgerald giving the Chief Judge a status report on Rove? Alas, the administrative assistant refused any comment afterwards.

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