Naked perjury, still a serious offense

Pat Buchanan, former Nixon speech writer and a man who knows criminals, on Scooter Libby's crime and punishment from last night's Hardball and my DVR [transcript pending]:

BUCHANAN: [T]he truth is Scooter Libby committed perjury, naked perjury and obstruction of justice. I had friends go to jail, Ron [Christie, loyal Bushie and Scooter apologist], in Watergate for saying twice, 'I can't recall.' For eight months they went to jail on much less than this. Look, the criminal justice system is contingent upon people telling the truth and when you got someone as high up as Scooter Libby is, and a lawyer, working in the White House, who in that detailed conversation with Tim Russert nakedly committed perjury you got to punish the guy, and I believe he ought to have been sentenced to time. It might have been too tough, but I think it was a crime and you had to sentence him.

In a time when Republicans, with Karl Rove in the lead, have successfully minimized and dismissed the seriousness of every scandal hitting the Bush administration--WMDs, torture, domestic spying, a politicized DOJ--it's good to see the legal system still understands that perjury is as serious a crime today as it was back in Buchanan's Watergate days. All Libby had to do was tell the truth. He didn't. The travesty is not one of justice, it's one of judgment.

May this be just the first of many stark spectacles for Mr. Libby:

The final decision led to the stark spectacle of Mr. Libby’s leaving the courtroom for the first time not through the public entrance as he had done dozens of times in the past, but escorted in the fashion of a convict out a private door by grim-faced marshals.

It's not a frog-march, but it's close enough.