Henry Cisneros, Marc Rich, and Susan McDougal were all pardoned by Clinton in his final days in office. These pardons raised a firestorm of criticism for the apparent reward of those whose illegality was in parallel with different kinds of loyalty and support to the President.
Conservatives rightly criticized the appearance of corruption all of these pardons represented.

That is why it is so sad that so many have revealed themselves to be hacks of the worst kind in calling for the pardon of Scooter Libby. Like Ken Starr, Patrick Fitzgerald has been criticized as a special prosecutor lacking a sense of perspective. Perhaps. This seems a typical trend with special prosecutors, and Scalia noted as much in his dissent related to the independent counsel statute at issue in Morrison v. Olson. But neither of those criticisms excuse Libby’s obstruction of justice or lying to a grand jury. Further general criticisms of the policy of the independent counsel statute, like generalized criticisms of the war on drugs, do not excuse any individual’s violation of the laws.

Bush and every Republican candidate on record as supporting Libby’s pardon will find this issue brought up again and again until election day. What a sad waste of political capital, seconded only by Bush’s repeated efforts to promote his revolutionary amnesty proposals.