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The prison sentence for perjury handed down to Lewis Libby, the onetime Chief of Staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was the lead on both CBS and NBC and the Story of the Day. But the focus of attention of all three networks was on Europe, as President George Bush prepared to attend the G8 Economic Summit on the Baltic coast of Germany. ABC led from Rostock. CBS filed on the G8 from London. NBC traveled to Oslo. And ABC and NBC covered a pair of dead English celebrities--Princess Diana, who is actually dead, and Paul McCartney, who is dead only in Beatles folklore.

Libby was convicted three months ago of obstructing the investigation into the blown cover of an undercover CIA spy. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told Judge Reggie Walton that Libby's lies "created a house of mirrors" for his investigators, CBS' Bob Orr told us. Orr noted that Lewis had been praised in more than 160 letters to Walton--nicknamed Longball for his harsh sentencing-- written by such luminaries as Donald Rumsfeld, Peter Pace, Henry Kissinger and Paul Wolfowitz. "The judge was unmoved." He fined Libby $250,000 and sentenced him to 30 months in prison. NBC's Bob Faw noted the Libby "showed no remorse" while his supporters were "crestfallen and furious."

ABC had George Stephanopoulos (no link) speculate on what will happen to Libby now. Libby wants to remain at liberty until his appeal is completed. If he is ordered to start serving the sentence instead, "President Bush will come under tremendous pressure from Libby's allies" to issue a pardon. NBC anchor Brian Williams interviewed former White House aide David Gergen (at the tail of the Faw videostream), who now teaches at Harvard University. Gergen noted that Libby's 30 months exceeds that handed down to White House aides HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman during the Watergate scandal: "This is a very tough sentence."

Andrew Tyndall 6/6/07 9:12:49 pm

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