Libby's Pardon

Yesterday, with Scooter Libby getting his sentence "commuted," he has been pardoned completely, but in a spectacularly spinnable, political way. First of all, he gets out of jail time for committing a felony. Second, don't even think for a minute that the other parts of his sentence are going to bother him in any way. His "probation" amounts to paperwork. His fine will be paid by his "legal defense fee," paid for by his rich friends.

So in sum, he gets off scot free for lying to cover up whatever crimes the Vice President (and who knows who else) committed.

And all the Republicans who are talking about how this is a good thing, that it's good that a "nice guy" isn't facing jail time? This "nice man" is a convicted felon. This "nice man" lied to federal prosecutors in order to cover up possible crimes by the Vice President of the United States, who may now get away with them. And finally, most of these same happy Republicans are the same ones who were right out in front of the crowd talking about what a heinous crime it was for Bill Clinton to lie about getting a (consensual!) hummer from an intern.

They should be ashamed of themselves. But of course they aren't; people like that never are. Heaven's no! The Wall Street Journal, the folks at the National Review, and so on, all know better than the jury, the judge (appointed by George Bush!), the prosecutor (appointed by John Ashcroft!), and the three-judge review panel (one of whom was the genius who overturned the Oliver North conviction, and gave us Kenneth Starr!)! Yessir, Libby got a raw deal from The Man!

What a crock. Libby had every single advantage he could possibly have, and he was still found guilty.

This is an easy one: Libby is a convicted felon. Bush is more than a hypocrite, he is a profound hypocrite. Bush has said:

• He would fire anyone that had anything to do with the "outing" of Valerie Plame. He didn't. (He didn't fire Libby, and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney still work at the White House.)
• He said that his Administration would not just do what's legal, but what's moral. Libby is a convicted felon; in other words, he behaved neither legally, nor morally.
• He didn't even follow his own rules with regard to pardoning and commuting sentences.

Bush, who blatted on and on about bringing "a new tone" to Washington, who gets all high and mighty about what a good Christian he is, and how he is doing God's work, and justifies his unjustifiable war in Iraq by citing God, is an immoral, hypocritical liar who believes that he and anyone who works for him is above the law. That is your President, ladies and gentlemen. And all you people who harshed on Natalie Maines for what she said about Bush at the beginning of the Iraq war? She was right, and you all were wrong; it is embarrassing that he is from Texas.

My level of disgust with this knows no bounds. I hope Fitzgerald goes after Cheney. Not for revenge, but for the good of the country. How long can this country survive if everyone thinks that the law doesn't apply to the people on top?

"Law if often but the but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." -- Thomas Jefferson