ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/02/libby.sentence/index.html
There’s nothing more to say, really.
Can you dig it? CAN YOU DIG IT?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/02/libby.sentence/index.html
There’s nothing more to say, really.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:59 pm
The only surprise I feel is the lack of surprise I feel. Frankly, I was surprised there was even a sentence to commute. Next up: The Scooter Libby Hour on Fox.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Good God in Heaven with Grape Kool-Aid Stain on His Robe (or whatever it is God wears)–hey let’s go ahead and just let Charlie Manson get paroled while you’re at it!
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:01 am
I don’t understand your frustration. Surely it’s not a surprise, and it would have been done if a Democrat was in power or if another Republican was in power; parties typically take care of their own. Somehow I think that if a Democrat was the one doing the deed, you wouldn’t have a problem with it. And to those who only read the headlines without reading further, this isn’t a PARDON. This is still a black mark on Libby’s resume. Were it a pardon (and hardly equitable to paroling a convicted killer like Charles Manson, so we can do without THAT drama) then it would be as if the millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money wasted on this debacle never happened (although the money would still be gone).
Now, if you’re pissed that Libby is walking after supposedly outing a CIA operative, well, then you’ve not been parsing through the media hype to get at the facts, which are, that Valerie Plame was at a DESK JOB, and had not been in a covert status for several years when it was “leaked” that she was an operative. Now, whether or not you think operatives at any given time, irregardless of covert status, should be outed, one of the facts of the matter is that Valerie’s status as a CIA agent was well-known way BEFORE Libby’s apparent slip o’ the tongue. Here are a few examples:
http://www.nationalledger.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=10&num=12257
It is also a fact that she perjured herself (as well as her husband) regarding using her status to get her husband a coveted international position…but since this is a Republican lynching, I suppose we’ll just leave that little tidbit off to the wayside.
So again, I question, what is this source of agita over this event? Or is this just a collective moaning because one of the Bushies is going to get away without fully satisfying your Republican bloodlust?
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:43 am
All presidents do this. Clinton signed 140 pardons on his last day of office. Bush’s old man pardoned almost everybody involved in Iran-Contra. Reagan pardoned George Steinbrenner. Idiot Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon for Watergate and Robert E. Lee (?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_a_ United_States_president
I guess it’s a perk of the job that on your last week of office, you get to do daffy stuff like this. I’m surprised some of these guys don’t steal all the towels and soap before they leave like it’s a hotel.
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July 3rd, 2007 at 7:26 am
I can only speak for myself when I say this is just collective moaning because one of the Bush Gang is going to get away, and not for the last time, without remotely satisfying my bottomless Republican bloodlust. In this case, with obstruction of justice.
Or as my paternal grandfather used to say (a Republican politico, like my maternal grandfather), “Even if it was good, I wouldn’t like it.”
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:25 am
For me, it’s all about obstruction. And you can talk about the ins and outs of Plame’s identity all you want. Regardless of status, no one in any administration should EVER talk about an agent’s status with the press.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:05 am
Seriously, for me: I sympathize with those who are disappointed, but Libby seems to be an irrelevant figure in this particular ideological battle; from the first he’s been taking one for the team. Nor would I call this latest development a reward for drawing fire so much as it is a cushion for his fall, an uncharacteristically reserved action for the normally defiant President Bush.
In the grand scheme of things, and compared to all other offenses by this White House, commuting Libby’s prison sentence is, for once, a modest assertion of genuine executive privelege. Thus, I can’t get too worked up over it. I was disappointed at first, but no more so than when the prosecution failed to prove anything beyond obstruction of justice. Eh: it’s like nailing Capone for tax evasion.
Bigger battles are to come in the ongoing war over what “the American People” will tolerate, and from whom.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:09 am
Sorry… had to shorten the ARG! in the title so it didn’t keep kicking the sidebars down the page. Originally, it was edited down from ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!
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July 4th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
“For me, it’s all about obstruction. And you can talk about the ins and outs of Plame’s identity all you want. Regardless of status, no one in any administration should EVER talk about an agent’s status with the press.”
Troy, I absolutely agree. I firmly believe that a target is put on ANYONE’S back irregardless of their status. I don’t think retribution is held back simply because someone has gone to a desk and is out of the field. HOWEVER, this is a failing of the LAW as it is written and is NOT a product of loose lips sinking ships (excluding for the moment that Libby was NOT, as is documented by several sources–one need only Google it to find them–the first to say it). As much as people malign Bush, and I suppose they have a right to since Scapegoat is the Number 2 responsibility in the President’s job description, people–citizens–should be opening their eyes and wondering, nay, DEMANDING, that those fucking waste of space Congressmen and women do something to earn their fucking keep. Maybe working to change the letter of the law where intelligence agents are concerned is one of those things.
Oh, but that’s right, they don’t want to rock the boat and put their koosh jobs in jeopardy, right?
July 4th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
The obstruction claim is a bullshit railroading. The liberals KNEW that if they got Libby on the stand they could back him into a corner and force him into a questionable response that would have all the appearances of perjury and obstruction. I ask you, if any other trial in this country ended with the jury saying, “Um, we don’t really know why this guy’s on trial. We THINK he’s been dishonest, but we’re not 100% sure.” (that was from CNN, I think. Again, Google it and you’ll find it.) you’d have Jesse Jackson and the ACLU and Ted Kennedy all up on your grill about it being a failure of the justice system and this man/woman needs to be set free (unless you’re the Duke lacrosse team, in which you’re just fucked). And seriously, if you disconnect your desire to see a Bushie hanging from a yardarm and read the account of the trial, can you HONESTLY say that if it was anyone else was on the stand that you could sit back and say, oh yeah, that fucker’s guilty. Seriously now.