Will Libby Linger?

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he expects President Bush’s decision to pardon I. Lewis Libby will “linger” into the 2008 congressional campaign.

“It is part of the atmosphere that people are tired of,” Van Hollen said. “You continue to have Republicans -- regardless of what they say -- in lockstep with the administration on major issues, especially Iraq.”

Yesterday, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, issued a statement saying Bush “did the right thing” in commuting the two-and-a-half year prison sentence of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff who was convicted earlier this year of perjury in the CIA leak case. But most Republicans remained mum.

Van Hollen said the decision to commute Libby’s sentence “confirms people’s worst impressions” of the Bush administration.

“Now you can go so far as to break the law and the president doesn’t just look other way, but he actually condones it,” Van Hollen said.

— Daniel W. Reilly