By commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby before Libby had even touched a toe to the prison cell, George W. Bush has proved once more what he meant by the “compassionate conservatism” he promised at the start of his great adventure.

He is a man who has compassion for conservatives. His tender spot hardens for everyone else, but for his fellow travelers, it is invariably and decidedly mushy. As he once put it so unforgettably, “I've got a record, a record that is conservative and a record that is compassionated."

In signing the death warrants for 131 Texas inmates, Bush showed no interest in the effects on families of the condemned, though concern for Libby’s family was one of the reasons he gave for allowing Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff to skip prison. Nor, as governor of Texas, did he seem to care about the harshness of the sentences, despite the fact that, “attorneys in 40 cases presented no evidence whatsoever or only one witness during the trial’s sentencing phase,” according to a Chicago Tribune investigation reported in June 2000.

Yes, it’s good to be the king. And to be a friend of the king. Especially if you are a friend who knows where the bodies are buried, and your patrons are worried that, feeling abandoned, you might just start telling what you know.

Naturally, the White House pooh-poohs that notion as a possible motive for the president’s recent act of mercy. Tony Snow, who treats his job as White House press secretary like a religious calling, wrote in USA Today last week that Bush’s motivation was pure and righteous, neither political nor self-serving.

“The president was not motivated by politics in making this decision,” Snow wrote. “If he had made the decision based on opinion polls, he wouldn’t have lifted a finger.”

You know I believe him? Who wouldn’t, considering how many times Bush and his top people have demonstrated their disregard for what we think? So what if Libby started chirping? Scandal could smother the country, and, if past is prologue, scandal would be all there was to it. Consequences? Why start now?

After all, this is the president that stood before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience and flat-out lied about us needing to get our soldiers into Iraq and fast before Saddam Hussein blew us all up.

And the president who has portrayed every one of his former appointees who spilled the beans as a nut case, an incompetent, an anti-patriot or a disgruntled turncoat. (See Paul O’Neill, George Tenet, Colin Powell, etc.)

And the president who stood behind his Barney Fife of an attorney general who is apparently so grateful for his job that he doesn’t mind looking like a loser and a sycophant and a traitor to the law as long as he can just keep his day job.

And the president who praised Michael Brown, even as dead bodies were rotting in the New Orleans streets, only to throw “Brownie” overboard when the public outcry grew too loud.

And the president who lets his second-in-command defy Congress and hide behind a privilege that may or may not be his, but so what when you’re Dick the Terrible?

Granted, opinion polls can be overused and overemphasized, but they can also be purposeful. They can be a good thermometer for what the people think and want. You remember "the people?" The ones Bush pretended to work for until 9/11 gave him cover to seize the throne and do as he damn well pleases?

Snow is right: If Bush cared about what people think, “he wouldn’t have lifted a finger,” because the people believed Libby should have to face the music just as much as those 131 executed men and women in Texas did, although Libby’s music is much, much sweeter than theirs.

“Instead,” wrote Snow, “he did what he does normally.”

True. And what he does normally is to ignore the public will. And if he feels like it, he’ll ignore the law too.