My maternal grandfather, A.B. Heacock, was elected to the school board of Emporia, Kan., in 1898 on the Populist Party ticket. Although our family has been primarily Republican, perhaps the Populist philosophy, the idea that we have a privileged class that gets special treatment, plus everybody else, is hereditarily ingrained in my bones.

This spring, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined. July 2, President Bush commuted the jail sentence, but left the $250,000 fine in place.

In my 40 years of teaching American government to community-college students, I have told students, consistent with textbook information, that the judicial system is the great equalizing branch of government. People with political clout may get special treatment by lobbying the legislative and executive branches, but the judicial branch is the "great equalizer."

While I always conveyed that message with a grain of salt (realizing those with a lot of money to spend on lawyers and special investigators fared better) that, in general, common people, could rely on being treated equally. By interfering with the judicial process, the president has made clear that American justice is not equal and is not fair. Let anyone reading this picture himself in Libby's position and somehow getting a "get out of jail free" card. It would not happen.

We clearly have two systems of justice — one for the small group of those who are influential, and another for everyone else. The president's justification was that the prison sentence was "excessive," even though it was within sentencing guidelines, handed down by a Republican-appointed judge and approved unanimously by a four-member judicial panel, three of whose members are Republicans.

Moreover, of 9,000 appeals to Bush for clemency since 2001, this was only the fourth one granted, to say nothing of the fact that not a single death sentence was commuted by Bush when he was governor of Texas.

Reasonable people should now realize that this whole matter was a conspiracy from the beginning. It began with the 2003 State of the Union address when Bush erred in trying to sell the Iraq war to Congress and the American people by indicating the Saddam Hussein had a nuclear-weapons program and was getting his nuclear material from Niger — a theory exploded by former ambassador to Niger, Joseph Wilson, later that spring, following his CIA-sponsored visit to that country.

The administration then concluded that Wilson had to be discredited. How was it to be done? Make the point in the media that Wilson's trip was not official, but a sort of family affair cooked up by his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, and try to prove it by leaking her name to the press.

The good soldier, Libby, was one of the ones selected for the leaking and performed his job well, informing several Capitol Hill reporters. But a fly in the ointment, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, concluding that Plame was an undercover agent and that it was a crime to reveal her identity, began investigating.

Next, a cover story was concocted for Libby: Tell investigators that Plame's name was being bandied about all over and that he, in fact, had been told about her by a reporter, and was simply passing on secondhand information.

However, in lengthy sessions with investigators and grand jury, he told such an incredible, convoluted story that he was indicted on four counts of lying — obstructing justice. No worry, Libby. We'll raise millions and hire the best lawyers, won't cost you a cent. But the trial was going badly. The reporters' testimonies could not be shaken and it became clear from a preponderance of the testimony that Libby was the "leaker" and not the "leakee."

Now it was time for the defense to bring out the big guns, put Cheney on the stand and have Libby testify in his own defense, as had been indicated from the outset by the defense. But, to avoid harm to the administration, the final element of the plan was put in place. Keep you mouth shut and the president will make sure you serve no jail time.

Libby kept his part of the bargain and received his fourfold conviction with a stoic silence. In fact, the defense was so pitiful that some of the jurors expressed compassion for Libby, announcing that he was simply the "fall guy." They were almost correct. A fall guy all right, but a fall guy with a safety net.

— Ed Jones, of Westlake Village, is a political science professor at Pierce College.