President Bush's move to commute Scooter Libby's sentence comes as no surprise -- using presidential clemency when the crimes were committed within your own administration is unseemly, but it's hardly unprecedented.

And frankly, I won't lose any sleep over Libby's lack of jail time. A 30-month sentence struck me as excessive, too, and I wouldn't call a $250K fine "getting off easy."

What is troubling, however, is that Bush's sense of mercy doesn't seem to extend much beyond, well, Scooter Libby.

Plenty has been written about this president's parsimonious approach to pardons and his otherwise-hardline approach to sentencing, but the glaring issue for me is Bush's record as Texas governor when it came to capital crimes and executions.

For those who need a reminder, go read Alan Berlow's 2003 piece in The Atlantic Monthly. While the article's main focus is Alberto Gonzalez's cursory approach to clemency memos, there's no evidence that Bush pressed for more details or even gave much thought to the cases put before him.

There were 153 convicted criminals sentenced to death in Texas while Bush was governor, Berlow notedr, and "Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one."

Berlow also wrote:

A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.

Just to be clear: I'm in no way trying to equate Libby or his perjury with the violent crimes that land a person on death row. But I would like to think that those facing the ultimate penalty warrant careful, merciful review at least as much as a political insider facing 30 months does -- particularly when the mitigating factors go far beyond "years of exceptional public service."