wArSHINtuHn--Michael Jackson would be proud, the president and his army of lawyers decided just five hours after it was clear a decision would be forced upon them shortly--Lewis Libby would not be pardoned, but would have his sentence commuted (meaning no time in federal prison for the wimp). We're gwine' where tha' gwine' is, bawssss:Unlike a pardon, which would have wiped away Libby's criminal record, Bush's commutation voided only the prison term.The president left intact a $250,000 fine and two years' probation for his conviction of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The former operative, Valerie Plame, contends the White House was trying to discredit her husband, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy. Bush said his action still "leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."Libby was convicted in March, the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair roiled the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Arms were secretly sold to Iran to gain freedom for American hostages, with the money funneled to anti-communist guerrillas in Nicaragua in spite of a congressional ban. Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, issued pardons for six former officials shortly before leaving office in 1992. (AP, 07.02.2007)
Now that you put it that way...for once, I have to agree with Vice President Bush, the administration of President Cheney must be preserved at-all-costs. Just leave the GOP out of it. Oh wait. Perhaps that's the whole point. Problem is, that's not going to make everything else go away, and now there's more pressure on Congress to really clean things up. We knew something like this was coming and--at least--the vice president (Bush) will be taking some political-blows for this decision. Yes, it's strange that President Cheney isn't making this decision--he's a part of the Executive branch, after all.
$250,000 clams is a lot, but I'm sure the president has a some cushy job waiting for him as a ghost employee for the Carlyle Group, or at Halliburton, maybe some think tank or lobbying position like with Paul Wolfowitz. Or, as in the case of Donald Rumsfeld, he can be a governmental "advisor" drawing-a-paycheck on our dime. Considering Congress will now feel pressured to dig-deeper into all the other scandals, this was some serious damage control. What if he'd had to do laundry? What about the prison sex? OK, he would've liked that, so it wouldn't have been punishment, but perhaps a English Public School?
Commutation means they're all in more trouble than our wildest imaginations can muster, something even worse than lying to get us into a war. Yes, they all farted in public. Since Libby is on a two-year probation, does it mean he can never associate with other known criminals? That means he can never enter the city limits of the District of Columbia, except perhaps in his 1,000th-incarnation. Sometimes, you have to keep trying (that'll learn ya'). It's good to have Congress doing their stalling and bait-and-switch for the White House, but what are friends for? I mean the Democrats. But then there are loose-cannons like that guy who needs to "go fuck himself": Senator Patrick Leahy.
Considering that Congress chose the right scandal--the U.S. Attorney firings--to investigate, the Oval Office has been wise to conserve on those pardons, even doing so in Scooter's case. But isn't time to re-examine the legitimacy of the pardon? It's true, one should always do so in the case of an Executive flatuence--but dozens-and-dozens? Perhaps a "pardon me" just won't cut it (pun always intended) anymore, and we need a presidential version of "awwwwwwww schucks"? Has anyone considered--not the lillies, goofballs--that Libby was doing some leaking, and not on Jeff Gannon? I mean really, the founding fathers were obsessed with Rome, just not in "bundling" with the "guys," y'know?
And frankly, who needs an Electoral College when everyone has to go to night school...the best thing about all of this is: the president still crapped himself on a dare, the damage is done, and the pants are soiled. Adult diapers time? Depends. No-no-no-no-no! It don't matter, 'cause I was born in a briar-patch! Call it Aesop Sophia, Apollo, Confucius, or Uncle Remus, but wisdom is dead in most people. This is just as it was 3,000-years-ago when Heraclitus, Zoroaster, and Siddartha were some of the first to realize this fact of the human condition. Who needs reincarnation or an afterlife when the same kinds of people keep making the same mistakes over-and-over again? Remember: Mark Twain had given up on the human race in 1910.
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