Lewis “Scooter” Libby started his time in Washington as a no name. Nobody outside a small cadre of far-right Republicans even knew who he was. Libby was Vice-President Cheney’s chief-of-state and made headlines as he was indicted and subsequently charged for perjury in the Valarie Plame investigation.

Lewis ostensibly leaked the identity of the so-called undercover C.I.A. officer Valarie Plame Wilson. He wasn’t charged for that “crime,” but for being less than straightforward with the federal investigation.

Shortly after his guilty verdict, President Bush commuted Libby’s charge but stopped short of a full pardon. Without a pardon Libby will still have to do sometime and his perjury charge will forever stay on his record and tarnish his name.

The New York Daily News is reporting that Cheney tried repeatedly to get President Bush to issue a pardon for Libby. The issue was brought up everyday in the final days of the administration, Cheney even tried the day before Obama was sworn in. President Bush, to his credit, refused to heed Cheney’s request. That, the Daily News reports, made Cheney furious.

Sources close to Cheney told the Daily News the former vice president repeatedly pressed Bush to pardon Libby, arguing his ex-chief of staff and longtime alter ego deserved a full exoneration - even though Bush had already kept Libby out of jail by commuting his 30-month prison sentence.

“He tried to make it happen right up until the very end,” one Cheney associate said.

Several sources confirmed Cheney refused to take no for an answer. “He went to the mat and came back and back and back at Bush,” a Cheney defender said. “He was still trying the day before Obama was sworn in.”

After repeatedly telling Cheney his mind was made up, Bush became so exasperated with Cheney’s persistence he told aides he didn’t want to discuss the matter any further.

The Washington Post Sleuth blog reports that a source said that Bush was more than just “exasperated” but told Cheney in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to issue a pardon.

“...a source tells the Sleuth that Bush’s reaction went beyond exasperation. He apparently expressed his opposition to pardoning Libby in “far more vigorous terms” to Cheney, the source says.”

Stephen Hayes, of the neo-con Weekly Standard, said on CNN that what really made Cheney and his people really mad was that, so they say, President Bush and his inner circle refused to agree to a pardon not due to the merits of the case but simply due to the fact that it would be bad PR in the final days of the administration. So it was a doubly injustice in their eyes, selling out a man for the media.

What do I think? Cheney, Libby and their ilk are contemptible people and I could care less what happens to them. But, in principle, Plame was not a undercover agent who’s identity was compromised by Libby. Plame had already been outed years ago by the traitor, Aldrich Ames, who sold secrets to the Soviets. That is why Plama worked at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Do you really think an undercover agent is going to walk through the doors of the C.I.A. every morning? No, real undercover agents lead double lives and never walk within five miles of Langley. Plame was classified, but almost every one, including the lunch lady, is classified at the C.I.A. She was not undercover and identifying her is not illegal and also fair game because it was Plame that got her husband the job to go to Niger.

The American people had the right to know that the guy, Joe Wilson, who wrote a New York Times editorial accusing the Bush administration of lying on Iraq - which they may or may not have did - was given the mission due to the in-house influence of his wife. Fair Game. So, Libby should have gotten the pardon.