Bush commutes the sentence of Lewis Libby, sparing him jail time. Rightwing blogs which celebrate this will no doubt miss the irony altogether.
***
Thanks to all the readers who pointed out that Libby had his sentence commuted rather than receiving a pardon. I should try harder to proofread before hitting the post button.
***Update***
Question – is the president arguing that people who commit perjury and obstruct justice should not go to jail, or only the right kind of people? Maybe someone should ask Tony Snow.
Either way this was a great, great day for defense attorneys.
srv
Commuted, not pardon.
Jim
Tim, you will no doubt be chastised by those who say Libby’s sentence was only commuted, with no pardon in sight. Of course, the $250,000 fine will no doubt be paid for by his legal defense fund, and the full pardon will likely come in January 2009, so you are simply cutting to the chase.
pop
The pardon comes later.
pop
The pardon comes later.
Dreggas
the president doesn’t have the power to “commute” anything, pardon yes, change a sentence? Nope. Once again he thumbs his nose at the law, the country and the constitution and the press pretends like it’s some great compromise.
Dreggas
Oh and add to that this little gem.
Bush to America: FUCK YOU!
demkat620
Disgusting. That’s all I can say.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Oh gewd gawd. The spin starts already.
How about this for some spin. Paris Hilton served more time than Scooter Libby.
Tsulagi
Surprise factor? Zero.
cleek
Rule Of Law!
Rule Of Law!
Rule Of Law!
Rule Of Law!
Zifnab
But… but… but… there was no underlying crime guys. If a tree falls in the woods, and you lie about it on the witness stand, is it really a crime if no one else heard it make a sound?
Mike S
Libby spent less time in prison than Paris did.
BTW here’s the relavent portion of the DOJ manual from Josh Marshall.
PeterJ
I guess we will see a lot of purgery in the next 18 months. If anyone would get caught and actually end up serving time then I guess Bush will commute again. And when he leaves office he’ll pardon the RNC phone book. It will be easier that way.
My prediction, the “Republican Crime Syndicate – aka the Bush Admin” label will completely worn out by 2009.
srv
This is all part of restoring honor and integrity to the White House. It’s who they are.
LLeo
Dreggas from the constitution:
A commutation would go under “Grant Reprieves”.
Adam
Schick v. Reed is the authority for commutation under the pardon/reprieve power.
That said, this is a joke. They’re not even contesting guilt.
This is unbelievable.
Dave
It was just perjury, I mean he didn’t kill Vince Foster or anything like that. Get a life.
I mean look at how many people Clinton killed!
demkat620
Place your bets on how fast Libby returns to the White House or gets a job with Fox News.
Psycheout
History will record this as a great day. Scooter Libby is an American hero who tried to expose the lies of Joe “the liar” Plame-Wilson. The tragedy is that Plame-Wilson will probably never serve a day in jail for his crimes.
My respect for President Bush has gone up for this brave and principled move. He ignores the polls and does the right thing once again.
Dreggas
there’s no reprieve here, he stripped part of the sentence. No matter tho, not like anyone will really do anything about it.
ThymeZone
Her crime was much worse.
PaulW
To everyone who claims there was no underlying crime:
The CIA believed there was a crime. They demanded justice.
The Attorney General believed they had a case. He called in a Special Prosecutor.
The Special Prosecutor investigated and found evidence, but not enough direct evidence because Scooter Libby muddied the waters with his obstruction. So the Special Prosecutor brought him up on charges of lying and obstruction, which are legitimate matters of criminal law.
The judge presiding on the case saw enough evidence existed on the obstruction/lying charges, and allowed the case to proceed.
The jury found Scooter Libby did lie and did obstruct, preventing the Special Prosecutor from charging those who DID commit the crimes, so they found Scooter Libby guilty.
The legal system worked the way it is supposed to, as best it could with the evidence at hand. Until the President, one of the persons WHO BENEFITED from Scooter’s obstruction, stepped in and commuted the sentence.
There’s a reason why the White House phone lines are down. They know full well how the American people are going to respond to this. They just don’t care.
PeterJ
And she got a home made porn video. That’s way worse than a blowjob. And we all know that purgery is nothing compared to a blowjob. Funny that she didn’t get executed.
Dreggas
bah, didn’t mean to include everything, that was only supposed to be psycheout’s post…yeah too mad to type.
Tsulagi
The president doesn’t argue, he decides. In this instance, there were mitigating circumstances he carefully considered.
Yes, Decider Man decided and acknowledged Libby was indeed a perp. But he worked for Cheney, and Cheney loves Libby. That made The Decider’s decision real easy.
We all know who wears the pants in the WH. Bush has long been Dick whipped. In these trying times, can you blame our Commander Guy for running from an unlubed assault from Dick?
Otto Man
Paris Hilton: 23 Days in Jail.
Scooter Libby: 0 Days in Jail.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Billy K
There really was never any chance of him doing time, was there?
Bruce Moomaw
Did any of you really expect him to do otherwise? The important thing now is how to respond to this — and I notice Obama has already beat everyone else to the punch with a pretty good statement on it.
Meanwhile, keep in mind:
(1) Bush once again tried to split the difference, with the likely result that neither side will like him pretty much — he officially agreed with the jury that there was a crime, but then argued that there should be no punishment at all for it! This doens’t make any difference to him or Cheney — they don’t give a damn what happens to the GOP after they leave office, as Chency has already publicly said — but it should be hung around the neck of every 2008 GOP Presidential candidate.
(2) It CAN be hung around their necks; a landslide majority even of Republicans (51-34, according to Gallup in March) didn’t want Scooter to get off.
(3) Time for yet another major amendment to our now-ridiculously dysfunctional Constitution: one allowing Presidents to rescind all their predecesors pardons and commutations.
The only positive thing that might come out of the last 8 years would be belated recognition by the voters, and by Congress, that our supposedly splendid Constitution actually provides absolutely no legal protection aginst one-party dictatorship, because the Founders idiotically failed to see the rise of political parties at all — and that the only thing that’s shielded us from this during the last 2 centuries is a combination of reluctance by either party to take that final step, with sheer lucky historical accidents (the radical policy split between Northern and Southern members of the Democratic “Party”; the fact that the Dems controlled Congress under Nixon, etc.) Somebody — maybe Gingrich, but I suspect Addington — noticed this, and pointed out to this administration that if you possess enough sheer gall, there is simply no legal way under the current Constitution to keep you from rapidly racking up authoritarian powers. Unfortunately, both the voters and Congress still seem determined to blindly worship the Golden Calf of our current Constitution — until the next Administration does the same thing, that is. At that point, they may catch on.
Chad N. Freude
Dreggas –
Are you sure that Psycheout isn’t a spoof? His/her post on Blogs4brownback, from which the post above is taken, has more of the effusive language used here and really reads like parody.
Otto Man
Repeat after me: Republicans are soft on crime.
Dreggas
what’s parody/spoof anymore? It’s hard to tell. If it was then I thank the person for giving me an opening to vent against people like that. If it wasn’t a spoof then the sentiment still stands.
Undeniable Liberal
Fuck Fuck Fuck….welcome to Amerikkan justice, Bush style. Paris Hilton got a tougher sentence than Scooter Libby. When the Clenis lied to the grand jury about a fucking blowjob, the GOD’S OWN PARTY insists that he be removed from office. It’s ok if you are a rich white Republican. LAW AND ORDER, MY PALE SKINNY ASS.
MMM
ITMFA!
Salty Party Snax
I really don’t understand what it is you people are so upset about.
People with names like “Scooter” do not do prison time.
Get real for once.
caustics
Meh. Last juicy bone thrown to The Crazy Base after the epic unpleasantness over immigration. Otherwise, another surge to the bottom for George “Shit For Brains” Bush’s ultimate legacy – worst fucking president in the history of modern democracy.
PeterJ
How much does Cheney charge for a commute?
And someone should have told Martha Stewart. She might have been able to pay by decorating his bunker.
Chad N. Freude
The assumption is that the legislative branch keeps the executive branch in check by virtue of congressional control of funds, the authority to legislate, and the sole authority to declare war, all motivated by the need to respond to their voting constituencies, not to mention the SC’s sort-of-extraConstitutional power to declare executive actions unconstitutional. Well, that’s the theory. Of course, it depends on the non-Executive branches doing what they’re supposed to… Ummm, never mind.
Psycheout
It never fails to amuse me that the braindead left always incorrectly labels that which is cannot comprehend (the truth) as satire.
Whatever gets you through the day I suppose. Liberal heads are exploding all over the ‘reality-based’ community.
This splitting the difference nonsense is wishful thinking perhaps. This buys Scooter the time to appeal without worrying about going to the big house. If his appeal fails a pardon could be lurking around the next corner.
Bush is a master political strategist. But it doesn’t take much to outwit the spineless ‘leaders’ in today’s democrat party.
Chad N. Freude
As clearly shown by his astounding popularity among the voters.
Ok, you’re not a spoof and the opening quote in this post is the truth. Thanks for clarifying that.
Bruce Moomaw
“Master political strategist” when Gallup says the nation’s Republicans oppose it 51-34? Well, we ARE talking to a Brownback supporter…
Bruce Moomaw
“The assumption is that the legislative branch keeps the executive branch in check by virtue of congressional control of funds, the authority to legislate, and the sole authority to declare war, all motivated by the need to respond to their voting constituencies, not to mention the SC’s sort-of-extra-Constitutional power to declare executive actions unconstitutional. Well, that’s the theory. Of course, it depends on the non-Executive branches doing what they’re supposed to… Ummm, never mind.”
Well, of course. The Founders based their entire rickety structure — and said so at the time — on the assumption that political parties would never come into existence at all in the US, and indeed that it was crucial to KEEP them from doing so. Once the country was up and running, it took them about a week to realize their mistake, but by then it was too late — indeed, this mistake of theirs came within 3 days of destroying the US when it jammed up the 1800 Presidential election (requiring the emergency software patch of the 12th Amendment), and again 3 years later before we were rescued by “Marbury vs. Madison” (the Founders had originally intended for that Party-Free Congress to be the nation’s final legal arbiter, and indeed almost eliminated the Supreme Court completely!) Since then — by a run of pure dumb luck, as I said — we’ve staggered on as a mostly-democratic nation for two centuries; but our two-century run of pure luck is about to run out.
caustics
Psycheout Says:
You just made me spit my Starbucks Raspberry Mocha Frappuccino® Blended Coffee all over the screen.
And here I was, already late for my Secular Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming meeting.
jake
[Gasp!] And on a Monday no less. Surely this breaks the Wait until Friday Evening protocol. Libby must have threatened to sing like a mocking bird on steroids.
Now, if Libby were bound for the chair Bush would’ve been laughing too hard to whip out his Pen of Decideration. But you know what?
Better The Deciderator do it now, when every one’s paying attention. And you know what else? As much as the thought of a one party system revolts me, if the Republicans are going to produce shits like W! they can fuck off.
Chris Rock on reaction to O.J. Simpson Verdict: “What the FUCK did we win?”
Oh well. fRighties don’t do irony. They don’t have time for such frivolity because there are people out there who WANT TO KILL US.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Heh. You BDSers are beyond hope.
jrg
So true. Like this gem of truth that was revealed to me on blogs4brownback:
Now you show your support for a man who committed perjury in order to protect administration officials who outed a covert CIA agent for political gain? If you and your Brownback buddies are not satire, I weep for public education.
ThymeZone
Those Brownbackers are still not sure about heliocentrism.
How do we expect them to understand the behavior of materials in a vacuum?
jake
By showing them CAT scans of the Presidont’s head.
Psycheout
I weep for public education too. Until school vouchers are available to all (freedom of choice), I recommend homeschooling.
I am praying for an eventual full pardon. The meltdown will be delicious.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
So for lying to “protect” Armitage, who Fitzy already knew was the leaker (although Armitage curiously remains a free, unindicted man), Libby deserves — what? — about 5 times the sentence that Sandy Berger got for stealing classified national security documents, destroying them, and lying about it to investigators?
Because that’s what he got, after today. Still too harsh in my opinion.
ThymeZone
Yeah, but most of them are on rightwing blogs.
Wilfred
Rich white man justice: what else is new? Counting the days.
Rome Again
Karla Faye Tucker is rolling over in her grave.
louisms
So that’s what they mean by “compassionate conservatism”?
Wilfred
Who cares what you think, you pathetic little creature. Feeling a bit nervous, are we? Come to gloat, thinking that you won something, but not sure. Something wrong?
srv
Hint, Einstein: This is the quid-pro-quo your vaunted Bush Justice Dept worked out for nobody pursuing the Chalabi leaks to Iran and the Larry Wilkerson donating intelligence to AIPAC.
If you can’t handle it, you need to whine to Abu and Dick about it.
jake
A. Sullivan wakes up and smells the cat food:
Why? What did he respect, even minimally?
But Obama is on the case:
Andrew
This explains a lot about the incompetence of the car bombers.
PeterJ
Bush waited for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report to have their breaks before commuting Scooter.
He obviously fears Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
The MSM, not so much.
Otto Man
It’s like Bush is trying to see how low he can push his approval ratings. Can he break through the floor of the 20s and into the teens? It’s a reach, but I believe he’s just the man to do it.
jake
Maybe Maybe the fringe-niks have other priorities.
Or maybe they need to refine their technique a bit more:
OK, so we set the car on fire, THEN drive into the building. Are we forgetting anything?
CaseyL
Otto Man, I don’t think Bush gives a flying, feathered fart about his poll numbers.
But if he does, you’ve got it the wrong way around. Commuting Libby’s sentence is what he needed to do to hang onto that last 28%.
Fred Thompson (the GOP’s latest Great White Hope) has praised Bush’s act, making him the dead-enders’ darling. But everyone outside those 28% dead-enders is pissed off to greater or lesser degree. Bush may have just fastened the final layer of the cement suit onto whoever gets the GOP Presidential nomination.
H’mm: the utter destruction of the GOP’s 2008 hopes, and possibly its future as a viable political party?
I can live with that.
Punchy
There really, really was never any doubt about this. As we know, Cheney runs the government, and Bush signs the paychecks.
I bet this was arrainged about 6 months ago…
Evilbeard
I was over at Malkin’ site to see what her followers had to say about the Libby commute and was suprised that they are not united in adulation and joy.
About half are happy and the rest are split between those who are upset it wasn’t a full pardon and those who are pissed the President would pardon Libby but not the three Border Patrol guards arrested for murder.
It was kinda weird not seeing them all lock-step in agreement.
Bruce Moomaw
“So for lying to ‘protect’ Armitage, who Fitzy already knew was the leaker (although Armitage curiously remains a free, unindicted man), Libby deserves—what?—about 5 times the sentence that Sandy Berger got for stealing classified national security documents, destroying them, and lying about it to investigators?”
Please? Berger aside (I’m certainly not going to defend him), no one has ever thought Libby was defending Armitage. The universal assumption has been either that:
(1) He didn’t know Armitage had ‘fessed up to the leak (which Armitage still insists was accidental), and was therefore lying to cover up the fact that he himself had deliberately leaked Plame’s status independently;
or (2) As a detailed analysis by the AP concluded last year, he was lying not for LEGAL reasons but for POLITICAL ones, since the White House solemnly insisted all through the 2004 campaign that no one on the White House staff had talked to reporters at all about Plame’s status, even separately from Armitage. (After all, even if nothing technically illegal had been done, that revelation might very well have swung that very close election.) The original plan would have been for Libby and Rove to both perjure themselves in order to agree with that public W.H. story — but then Fitxgerald unexpectedly cracked the reporters involved, giving Rove barely enough time to hastily change his own story (as the AP points out, he was privately testifying to Fitz that he had talked to those reporters at exactly the same time that the White House was publicly denying it), but too late for Libby to be able to change his own earlier testimony and avoid that (justified) perjury rap.
And as for Armitage, it’s perfectly plausible that he DID leak it accidentally, since — to put it mildly — he was never a fan of Cheney and his Merry Men.
Candidus
Somebody needs to send for more cats.
TAX ANALYST
Well, one thing to note here in Bush slipping us all a Libby is how fast it drew some of this site’s wingnuts back into print. They just can’t resist smirking whenever they think their side has scored a free throw. No matter what damage it does to the nation. Hey guys, make me feel at home…call me a “Traitor” for saying George W. Bush is a sack of fetid fucking feces who has done more damage to this country than Al Queda could ever possibly do, and then go out and give each other backrubs or whatever it is you do to convince yourself this bullshit is “OK” because “your side” is winning. Yeah, I’m talking to you Lambchop and you too Psycheout…you just don’t get it, do you? It never occurs to you that all this underhanded bullshit might come on over and smack you upside your smirky asses at some point down the road…you really think “your guys” won’t sell you out when the time comes and it’s your ass or theirs…don’t look now, but they already have…so have a Nice Day, will ya?
Psycheout
Have another drink, “TAX ANALYST.”
Tony J
Wow.
A Republican prosecutor accuses him of perjury.
A Republican judge throws the book at him.
A majority-Republican Appeal Court tells him to get his ass to jail.
A Republican President, devoid of any other options, is forced to buy him off by keeping him out of said jail while he waits to lose his appeal.
Then we get the massed hordes of Der Jeermacht crowing that somehow, in a way even they can’t really explain, this is a victory for the Republican cause.
Remind me again how this looks bad for the Democrats, because I’m having trouble seeing it as anything other than the political equivalent of a scene from ‘Saw’.
Bruce Moomaw
Orin Kerr, over at “Volokh Conspiracy”, agreed with Tony J. practically word-for-word. However, one must keep in mind that Bush & Cheney at this point have a much higher priority than assisting their party: namely, keeping their own asses out of jail by any means necessary.
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, on reinspection, Tony J. said exactly the same thing Kerr and I did, but in a much cleverer way.
jake
In any gang there are a number of people who aren’t really in the gang but they’re tolerated as hangers-on or groupies. When one of the real members smashes a window or a knee cap, the toadies get a vicarious thrill and they scurry off and laugh at how stupid the vic looked.
In this case, “looking bad” = “not being able to stop my pal before he threw that rock.”
Tim F.
Psycheout:
Try answering a simple question. Are you happy because you think that people who perjure and obstruct justice should not go to jail, or only the right kind of people?
Dodge and misdirection coming in 5,4,3,2…
Funny, that was exactly as dishonest as I expected from you. Why not try again, except this time compare Libby’s sentence to other people who have been convicted of the same crime. Or maybe you think that we should have special rules of justice for well-connected people? I would be fascinated to hear you defend that. Many thanks in advance.
Paris Hilton
I’ll sue!
Mom!
Punchy
The message has been sent–there will be NO incentive to follow laws and rules from here on out. I suspect the Bush Admin may just go full-on crazy ignoring or breaking statutes at this point. Bush has finally telegraphed his role–he is everyone’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card, and it matters not a whit what the crime involves.
Basically, the WH is now a law-free entity. God help us.
Zifnab
Tim, Psycheout is from Blogs4Brownback, so try to take everything he says with a grain of spoof.
LITBMueller
Sooooo….I wonder how Poppy Bush feels about this, eh???? Bush 41, the former CIA Dir., was a hawk when it came to outing agents. But, W came up with his commutation scheme right when Poppy & W are playing grabass with Putin on a boat in Kennebunkport.
And, so, the Circle of Irony is complete…heh heh. Bush really really hates his dad.
As for Psycheout, there is a certain amount of genius in keeping Libby’s sentence, and hence his appeal, alive because now Congress can’t make him testify without him invoking the 5th.
But, it was Cheney’s Evil Genius who surely came up with this. Not W.
The Other Steve
I don’t understand what Berger did, but the documents he took and destroyed were merely copies, and it didn’t appear as though he did so with the purpose of giving them to a foreign government.
Contrast this to what the Bush administration did to our CIA agents, by exposing CIA operations to our enemies.
In what way are these at all similar?
Oh, I see. I forgot that it’s ok to lie for POLITICAL reasons. That is, if you are a Republican.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Don’t bother to explain why it’s “dishonest” to compare sentences for various crimes. Your word is good enough… for the retards around here. Look, I know you’re not much on reading, but try again. I never wrote that the crimes were the same, nor did I say the punishments were the same.
“Should?” Wake up, sunshine! ‘Twas ever thus, in every shire! Sandy Berger, Marc Rich. Google it!
Tim F.
Let’s go to the tape, lambchop.
As I said once already, you dishonestly chose to compare the sentences for two unrelated crimes. If you want to get worked up into that copyrighted lather of yours (isn’t there a liberal acting mean somewhere?) then at least scratch together some credibility and compare Libby’s sentence to people who committed similar crimes. Or maybe you want me to explain the obvious for a third time.
Tim F.
Now you’re arguing that Sandy Berger got special treatment from the Bush DOJ? Yeesh. DougJ quit because he couldn’t compete with chumps like you.
Zifnab
Hey, Clinton lied under oath and what happened to him? Nothin’. And Clinton was covering up the murder of Vince Foster. How’s that for comparable?
The Other Steve
Is this ironic?
Guess who was Marc Rich’s attorney?
From 1985-2000, when he was pursuing a pardon.
Oh the sweet sweet irony of the wingnutosphere.
The Other Steve
I thought he was covering up the affair from his wife.
Or is that just a lie that the liberal media told me?
Dreggas
Thanks for removing the post with all the other posts block quoted, but in case anyone forgets…
Psycheout, and EEEL
both of you can go sit on it and rotate you bunch of disingenuous pricks.
Simplicio
A recent Supreme Court decision (Rita v. U.S.) really puts Bush’s decision in stark relief. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 (!) to uphold the lower court’s sentencing.
Victor Rita, convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, asked for a lighter sentence based in part on his past military service. But the judge gave him 33 months, as suggested by the guidelines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, upheld the sentence, saying that penalties within the guidelines are “presumptively reasonable.”
Tony J
Well, as I’m sure someone used to say, “There’s The Truth, and there’s Known Truths, and the only difference is that the latter have quotation marks put around them by stupid people in a vain attempt to dismiss them through the Power of Snark”.
Which is why the Klutzwaffen are so eager to present this humiliating admission of guilt as a victory. Admitting that El Residente was basically forced to throw an amnesty to a convicted felon in order to keep him sweet for a few more months would be painful to them; like a splinter, or cheeto-sludge rubbed into in the eye.
(fixed)
Tony J
Though, to be serious, all we’ve seen here is Bush admitting that he’s can’t challenge Libby’s conviction, so he deciderated to render the sentence meaningless instead. It’s equivalent to tagging a signing-statement onto the verdicts of the original court and the appeal court saying that, while he acknowledges the Courts’ legal power to say “Scooter Libby is a lying P.O.S.”, he believes that actually punishing any member of his Turkey-Circle for being a lying P.O.S. impinges on his Unitary Executive Branch right to reward loyalty with immunity.
It’s also worth pointing out that, while he’s acknowledging that Scooter Libby committed perjury to protect others within the Regime, he’s making a point about the DOJ not being involved in the deliberations on exactly how to make sure Libby doesn’t suffer for it. It says an awful lot about the pressure the White House is feeling from Congressional Oversight that he didn’t feel safe having a lawyer in the room when Cheney filled him in on the scam.
mrmobi
Digby is on fire today:
Emphasis mine. Lambchop, we know you get all wet when you think about all the folks Mr. McFlightsuit has fried. I’m sure you’d like to go back to firing squads, though, right? I know it’s hard for you to focus on issues which don’t involve torture and murder, but just try to remember, Clinton was acquitted. Period.
Our alcoholic, sociopathic President just commuted the sentence of someone who could just possibly put him in jail with this testimony. This must make you very proud, no?
short fuse
When the revolution finally comes, I’m really hoping they come with guillotines.
Since the rule of Law no longer applies, ya know…
The Other Steve
To be fair, I think the President should pardon everyone in the country convicted of perjury.
And we should stop persecuting for that crime, since it’s really not so bad.
Jake
I’m sure GoneZo is working out an interpretation of the law that allows Bush to pre-pardon everyone in his Administration, just in case they’re unjustly tried and convicted by islamahomofascists.
Attorneys savour the irony:
Bruce Moomaw
While Dr. Johnson’s remark about not wasting criticism on idiots remains as relevant as ever, I can’t resist quoting another statement by Psycheout on his own blog (as quoted by a stupefied Andrew Sullivan): “President Bush has made the correct decision. It makes me so proud to be an American. Justice prevails in the face of an overzealous prosecutor who wanted to punish Lewis Libby simply for being a Republican.” Yup. As Orin Kerr on the right-wing “Volokh Conspiracy” legal site (among many others) points out: how dare that Republican prosecutor (named by one of Bush’s own Justice Department appointees) and that Republican judge (named by Bush himself) punish Lewis Libby simply for being a Republican?
Of course, Martin Peretz has just finished making the same flabbergasting statement on his own blog (and being jumped by his own New Republic writers). In short, given the national supply of cretins of this caliber, it’s a reasonably safe bet that Bush’s popularity will never drop below 25%, even if he’s shown eating a live baby on television.
Keith
So much for Scooter being forced to act out his novel for a carton of smokes…