What Disturbs Me About the Libby Pardon
Written by Sam on July 3rd, 2007Is anyone else taken aback by how quickly Bush moved to pardon Scooter Libby, yet won’t pay a bit of attention to the three border guards that have been imprisoned for doing their jobs and protecting our country? Then again, Bush and Gonzales are probably the ones that pushed Johnny Sutton to prosecute them in the first place.
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I really wish this President would follow the Founders intentions for once. When Hamilton included the pardon power in the Constitution, it was not meant to commute sentences of people like Libby. As described in detail in Federalist 74, Hamilton said the power should be used to unify the nation after a conflict like Washington did when he pardoned those involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. Nothing about the Libby commute helps national unity and it just polarizes our society even more. If Bush cared about national unity and the Founders intent, he would have let Libby serve his sentence.
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Have an innocent man go to jail for national unity? What a patriot you are!
The pardon exists for the reasons you said it does, but I see no reason to not divide the nation further if the men of the other side of the division are not true Americans. Why try to gloss over these massive divisions in society? I say let these divisions become worse, do you really believe that Libby going to jail would soothe the irrational anger of a single idiot, unAmerican liberal?
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As for the three border guards I would favor impeaching Bush for a whole host of charges if I thought it would do a damn bit of good. The truth is that George Bush is a first rate coward, bastard and unAmerican prick who lied his way into office and has damaged the naiton severely, these three men are just a one more reason that Bush will go down in history as a one of the worst men to ever be president.
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By stating: “George Bush is a first rate coward, bastard and unAmerican prick who lied his way into office and has damaged the naiton severely”
Are you trying to demonstrate the irrational anger of a single idiot, unAmerican “Conservative”?
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This is one of the good decisions of the Bush Administration. Libby was only pursued because of a witch-hunt of the Left based on irrational hatred. Libby’s faulty memory does not rise to perjury in my book and considering the underlying crime never occurred, the Libby prosecution was nothing more than a political prosecution. Libby should not be thrown to the wolves because of political calculations.
I applaud the commutation and call for a full pardon.
The Border Patrol agents should receive the same.
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“Are you trying to demonstrate the irrational anger of a single idiot, unAmerican “Conservative”?”
Do you have a point or is this another one of your mindless comments? Care to expound on what you are trying to convey or is intelligent communction too much of a chore?
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What bothers me the most about Libby’s commutation is that Bush has yet again hamhandedly damaged the party and given the liberals armloads of talking point ammunition.
What bothers me most is Bush’s whole “I am the decider and I shall pronounce what I want, regardless of the collateral damage to my party.”
What bothers me most is that Bush doesn’t seem to care that he is pushing America into another “anti Republican” vote.
People didn’t vote Democrat in the last election, they voted anti-Republican.
Bush is becoming more of an albatross around our necks every day.
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I cannot believe so many people here are defending Libby. He was convicted of a crime in a federal court established through constitutional means. You can dispute the rational for the case, but he was convicted.
If people start declaring cases political witch hunts because they dislike what is happening, then won’t the public lose faith in our justice system like they have lost faith in the executive and legislative branch.
I do not think there should have been an investigation in this case, but there was and Libby engaged in crimes during its investigation. He should receive his punishment handed down by a jury of his peers.
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libby broke the law, plain and simple and he should have paid. 30 months was excessive but i think 6 - 12 should have been given.
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Partisan support overruling consideration of the will of the pople and the rule of law; this is what every liberal on the planet is already calling this. The clarion call of “CRONYISM” is already echoing in the spin machines.
This is a big part of why I am desperately afraid we will loose the next election.
People didn’t vote Democrat in the last election, they voted anti-Republican.
Bush’s actions and the rank and file partisanism of supporting it are all but shoving people into voting anti-Republican again.
The thought of four years of Hillary or Obama genuinely chills my blood. The thought of one of them coming into power with a decisive majority (based on an anti-Republican vote) is, I fear, where we are headed.
Hillary running things is scary. Hillary running things with a mandate is terrifying.
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Sam, please be precise in your language. Bush did not pardon Libby, he commuted part of the sentence. There is a significant difference.
The reality is that Bush is hoping for the legal system to work itself out. My understanding is that Libby actually has some very valid grounds for appealing of his conviction. Had the court decided to wait on sending Libby to jail until his appeals were exhausted this would not be an issue. The speed that Bush used was due strictly to the fact that based on the Appellate Court decision, Libby could have been sent to jail at any time, so he had to act quickly.
The border guards are a completely different issue.
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Honestly, the reason Hillary can be elected is that the Republicans failed to reign Bush in a long time ago.
Nobody ever wanted to stand up to Bush except a few until this year. If the Republicans would have made Bush be rational a long time ago, we would not be having these problems.
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Our court system should never be mistaken for a justice system. Part of the justice system is Presidential pardons. The “court system” gave us Roe v. Wade and the Kilho decision to name two. Lest we forget the prevalence of malicious prosecutions like Nifong in the Duke rape case. So forgive me if I do not trust our courts to get it right.
Anyway you slice it, the Libby prosecution though technically legal was not just and amounts to overzealous prosecution.
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Ryan, the president has full authority to pardon anyone for any reason except in cases of impeachment. Read the Constitution.
It’s not simply that we do not like the results of the Libby trial, but the investigation was fundamentally unjust. Fitzgerald knew from the start that Richard Armitage was the one who leaked Valerie Plame’s name. Fitzgerald knew from the start that this leak wasn’t a crime because Plame was not undercover. THAT is the real story and the real injustice that’s gone on.
And yet, Fitzgerald continued to investigate a crime when he knew no crime had been committed for the sole purpose of stringing up someone who remembered what happened incorrectly or did in fact lie about something that wasn’t a crime.
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I don’t understand what trouble people seem to be having with this Libby issue. The guy was innocent of any crime, the jury got it wrong. Do any of you have any evidence that this is not so? It was illegal for the independent counsel to proceed with questioning against Libby as if he were in fact the subject of the investigation. Libby DID NOT perjurer himself because he could not perjurer himself. Not remembering a date when someone told you something is not solid grounds for perjury.
I am no friend of the Bush administration, but do any of you care about the law or justice?
And as for the worry that the public might lose faith in the court system, what the fuck planet have you been living on? The court system in this country is a bigger joke than the executive or legislative branches and everyone knows it.
Honestly, open your eyes, this whole investigation and trial was a sham. Sending an innocent man to prision for it would only deepen the travesty.
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Today’s NYTimes had a troubling front-page story about how the Libby clemency — and the President’s arguments about how it was too harsh a sentence — are at odds with current efforts in similar cases by the Bush Administration’s own Department of Justice.
The article also stated that the clemency and the President’s justification for it could now be used as an argument for lighter sentences in other cases.
FYI:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/washington/04commute.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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Yeah, I’m really wondering what this is going to mean to the two scumbags just convicted in my own back yard: Scrushy and Sigelman.
Why won’t Mr. Bush just stop talking?