Publicity Not Helping Edwards' Release Bid

December 8, 2008
POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS

   Earlier this year, Edwin Edwards politely turned down my request to visit him at the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale. He wrote that some previous interviews with reporters did not sit well with prison officials, and so as not to "rock the boat" he thought it prudent not to have any "media types" visit him for now.

   Fine with me, but he should have told that to Grendel Levy. Had he rebuffed her too, his family and lawyer would not be bailing water from the wave of unwanted publicity she caused.

   Ms. Levy is a former producer for a New Orleans TV station who covered Edwards' gambling racketeering trial in 2000. The attractive young redhead was noticed and known by practically everyone in the courtroom, particularly the defendant, as "the girl in the red dress."

   She referred to herself that way in her recent letter to Edwards requesting an invitation to visit, which he promptly granted. Big mistake.

   Who knows what he told her during the three hours she said they spent together. By her account, which she shared on a radio talk show and was widely reported, Edwards has high hopes that his sentence will be commuted by President Bush at the urging of the first President Bush.

   On the air, she said Edwards told her, "Yeah, I have spoken to (former President Bush) and he said he's personally gone to his son and personally requested that I receive a (commutation)."

   You could feel Edwards cringe. His attorney, speaking for the former governor, promptly issued a statement denying that Edwards had spoken with the former president about a commutation or that he said he did. But a news cycle had passed already and the alleged comments had entered the public lore: Edwin's getting out of prison because old man Bush told his son to cut him loose. It was on the TV.

   That's the last notion that Edwards wants advanced. Yet, one can only say the press flare-up hurt his chances for a commutation if he had a shot to start with, which seems unlikely.

   Come Jan. 20, many people will be surprised that Edwards is not free. A commutation seemed almost in the bag, according to comments over the last few months from former Gov. Dave Treen, who has confounded fellow Republicans by his mission to secure the freedom of his former rival. Treen may deserve the good sportsmanship award, but his chance for success on Edwards' behalf was very bleak even before Grendel opened her mouth.

   It was Treen who first claimed that former President Bush had written to his son to request Edwards' commutation. Yet a source close to the Bush family denies that happened.

   If the president were to listen to anyone from Louisiana, it would be his friend former Sen. John Breaux, who has written on Edwards' behalf. Yet even his request likely falls on deaf ears.

   For George Bush to grant the early release of as notorious and polarizing a figure as Edwin Edwards would mark a radical departure from his approach to pardons and commutations, which has been among the most conservative of any president.

   He has signed only 171 pardons in eight years, all to people who had completed their sentences and were seeking the restoration of citizenship rights. What Edwards has applied for, a commutation of sentence, Bush has granted only eight, most of them low-level, non-controversial cases.

   Even if the president was more magnanimous, Edwards hardly qualifies as a sub-radar parolee. Whenever the subject arises in the public prints, the reaction from readers is starkly divided. Those most opposed to Edwards' release are self-described conservatives, among the last supporters Bush has left. Why would he alienate them to favor Edwards?

   For my part, I wish he were out today. Six years in the pen is ample punishment for the Justice Department's tortured theory of his crime, which turned opportunistic co-conspirators Robert Guidry and Eddie DeBartolo into defenseless victims of extortion. Then U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola piled on by giving Edwards more time than the sentencing guidelines called for.

   But that's all done, and it doesn't look like the one who can undo it will. Once Jan. 20 passes, Edwin might grow less paranoid about who comes to visit, and I might get in to see him then, even without a red dress on.