Libby

Talk about a blast from the George W. Bush-era past! The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that last year Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell restored the voting rights of a number of convicted felons, including one Scooter Libby.

To jog that memory a little, Libby was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and in 2007 he was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements in the outing of a CIA operative whose husband had spoken critically of the war in Iraq. Though sentenced to over two years in prison, President George W. Bush commuted his sentence.

Did Libby get some sort of preferential treatment from McDonnell? No—he was among the 1,000 felons who had their voting rights restored last year, a process that can only be approved by the commonwealth’s governor. In fact, McDonnell wants the process to move more quickly:

In Virginia, only the governor can restore a felon’s civil rights. McDonnell campaigned on implementing a speedier restoration-review process and, once in office, he set a goal of delivering an answer to a petitioner within 60 days. He has restored the rights for 4,616 felons to date, according to his office.

“The governor has established the quickest and fairest restoration of rights process in Virginia history,” said McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin. “He believes in second chances and redemption, and those basic beliefs drive this administration’s work on the issue.”

Like Libby or not, it’s somewhat crazy to think that he was forbidden from voting in at least one general election—not to mention Virginia state elections—since 2007 because he was a liar. In January McDonnell said that voting rights should be automatically restored for nonviolent felons, but the Virginia Legislature rebuffed him.