Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
Bloomberg reports that, “George W. Bush commuted Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby’s 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case, sparing him from punishment the president called ‘excessive.'” It seems W. changed his mind in the last four months about respecting jury verdicts involving serious matters as seen in the video above. Or, maybe the White House had given up all hope of restoring “honor and dignity,” and thus felt it had nothing to lose.
UPDATE: RAW STORY has more details, reaction. This is amazing. But what else is new? Revealing the identities of covert CIA assets is now just fine, apparently.
UPDATE FROM BRAD 10:54pm PT: A short message from Bush’s dad. Sent to him from 1999 when he was speaking to his former colleagues at the CIA. Li’l Bush, apparently, disagrees…
(Hat-tip to BRAD BLOG commenter “PatriotNW”)
Scum. Scum. Scum.
It’s time for H.Res 333 to Impeach Cheney (first).
I’ve called my Congressman’s office (Blumenauer, OR-3) to try to get him off his ass and co-sponsoring and doing the right thing, whether we have the votes to “win” or not.
Impeaching Cheney is the RIGHT THING to do for all the RIGHT reasons, and will have nothing but POSITIVE value for the Democratic Party and progressives all over the U.S.A.
Call your Congressperson’s office TODAY and ask them to consider co-sponsoring H. Res 333.
THIS HAS TO STOP.
I don’t ever want to hear another motherf”¢”¢”¢ing Republican mention Frank Rich–after this travesty of justice. America! Who will have the guts to do what must be done? We must march on the White House and remove this president and vice-president!
SON OF A F****ING B*TCH!
Well, so much for “Rule of Law.” Scooter Libby deserves prison. He is no scapegoat, and his “years of service” consist of plotting undemocratic, world-domineering policies.
Is there no one is Washington with any historical perspective?
Sure, Libby didn’t act alone with the Plame leak and thwarting its investigation, but he also didn’t go against his better nature and just follow orders.
I. Scooter Libby has always been at the forefront of aggressive neoconservative policy.
In 1992, Libby, along with former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, wrote a “Defense Planning Guidance” report, commissioned by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
This DPG called for the U.S. to claim its authority as the world superpower, to intimidate rivals for power, to bypass the United Nations as needed, to build more weapons to ensure global military dominance, and to strike pre-emptively against those who threaten U.S. interests anywhere in the world.
It was shockingly unethical, bullying and began the end of Americans-as-good-guys. It was supposedly shelved after its embarrassingly heartless approach to the world was leaked.
But in 1997 it resurfaced, only slightly edited, as the Statement of Principles of the Project for a New American Century, signed by Libby, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad and more. Though PNAC officially closed in 2006, its personnel and policies still thrive at the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, the Weekly Standard and, yes, the White House.
Impeaching Cheney first is NO LONGER sufficient! We need to impeach BOTH NOW! Or Bush will pardon Cheney. That CANNOT HAPPEN! Perhaps now is the time to cut a deal with the 22 Republicans up for reelection in 2008. Work with us, or you are going to be history then! And the deal is this! Either you work with us to pass an unvetoable majority to have a constitutional ammendment to disallow pardons by this administration over any member of this administration, past administrations, or others he appoints, or we WILL look to impeach both Bush and Cheney simultaneously and to replace them with Nancy Pelosi so that we can clean up the justice department forthwisth!
I just hope people remember that because of this treasonous act of Cheney, Libby, Rove, and Bush our NATIONAL SECURITY has been severely damaged. Valerie Plame was standing in the way of their second and third oil conquests, Iraq and Iran. They outed a covert intelligence gathering agent for the proliferation of WMD in Iraq and Iran so they can slaughter of human beings for oil. And now, the president is letting their scapegoat walk free. Everyone should now realize, they’re betrayal of humanity knows no limit.
Whew…the hatred spewed here is scary….and to think I actually thought I was “one of you”….no more.
E
That’s anger, Emma, not hatred. People are angry at the injustice that someone clearly guilty of the crime is getting off with no prison time. His crime goes to the very core of this administration’s values; cover up for, and insulate the higher-ups from their own misdeeds and wrondoings.
Bushco and the Republicans have stolen power, and they will never give it back. The majority of the American people are just going to roll-over and let them do whatever they like. The minority who fight back will be punished in some form or other and will end up in jail or dead. Don’t worry — the rest of the Western world is just like you. They don’t care. I wonder how horrible, deadly and threatening this world is going to get, before the majority in the Western world demand justice. It’s going to take a very long time and terrible suffering to get there. Glad I won’t be around to watch what is so predictable. Glad I don’t have children. The minority need miracles, miracles and more miracles to turn this around before too much death and destruction occurs. I am so sorry for everyone. This world could be so wonderfully different…so wonderfully better…a just and peaceful world…if only the majority would demand nothing less…
We have 567 more days of this, my friends. They may be impeached but you know that the Republican Senators will not remove them.
In case you want to follow Biden’s suggestion:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
link:
calipendence
It is my understanding that the President cannot interfere with an Impeachment in the House, or a Conviction in the Senate, and that after conviction by the Senate he would have to stand trial in court. * would be out of office by the time there would be any conviction… if, that is, there is ever another election….
Hi, Agent99 — as you probably realize, any presidential election is meaningless — the decision as to who will be the next president has already been made — the people running the elections, the paperwork identifying who will be allowed to vote and who will not, and the computers will all be set up and manipulated to ensure the result that Bushco, the Republicans, and the people they represent desire. American elections and democracy are now an illusion and delusion. The American people need to set aside their prejudices, and look at and consider facts instead. How many years is it going to take?
Bubba is very disappointed . . .
Bush seems utterly oblivious to the degree to which he’s trashing America.
It tires me to even think about the long road ahead to repairing the damage he’s done and to getting America back on track.
And all Emma can say is that we ‘hate’. Amazing. Emma, don’t you get mad when a secret agent working to protect your safety is disclosed and nobody is punished? Doesn’t it bother you to see your president letting the criminal off the hook? Don’t you even wonder why he did it? What is the matter with the 28%ers — are they all mentally defective?
Lest we not forget that this is the same administration that has repeatedly put people in prison for years because they made the grand mistake of voting while on probation at a time when Republicans were creating the non-existent voter fraud issue in order to legislate a voter-ID requirement which would help them steal more elections.
And we hate? Emma, Emma, Emma.
There are lots of Republican voters who have friends and family in jail for much, much less. Bush’s approval rating might fall into the teens after this, not that it matters.
And there was a story on Raw, “Bush having private meetings to figure out why the people don’t like him.”!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Libby is “Cheney’s guy”…I’m sure Cheney had a LOT to do with this! How about all those guys like Kissinger who wrote the court for leniency for Libby? ALL those guys had something to do with this!
I like the way the news said, “Bush ‘JUDGED’ the sentence to be too harsh”!!! So, now he’s a “JUDGE”! So our president has the final word, not the people and the courts! LONG LIVE CORPORATE KING GEORGE!
Since i heard… I had to drop by to see all your heads explode. You guys (and gals…Emma excluded) never disappoint.
I kinda pictured it going down like this in each of your houses (more likley apartments):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C6sb_W4lE
Cant wait till Debra certifies ‘ALL’ the DRE’s she kinda has to since we took the federal millions to implement unassisted multilingual and handicapped voters. But you guys never seem to mention that?
But that will be another day….another glorious day.
Ok…go back to the screaming……I will snicker.
…and his profiteer buddies will pick up the $250,000.00 “fine”…LOL! I’m sure HE’s paying the fine!!!!!!!!!
Give me a break! bush doesn’t have the brains to think up something like this… “I judge his sentence to be too long…” Those are cheney’s words… this is cheney’s doing… cheney runs the country, bush never did. If we were to impeach cheney NOW bush would have to run and find somebody else to run the place while he struts around looking all presidential. and maybe, just maybe, that v.p. replacement wouldn’t be as evil and immoral as cheney.
… remember these fuck’en people own the place . . . so they can do what eva they want.
I called Pelozi’s office today. I haven’t called a senator or rep in years. Impeach!!!Impeach!!!Impeach!!! This is so sick. Bush and Co. have no morals and are so self-absorbed and so devoid of any concept of community and the greater good that they are close to sociopathic. I DOOOOO believe that Bush is a “dry” drunk who is sociopathic. Sick.
reid and pelosi are about as useless as tits are on a bull . . .
If the polls are correct with close to 70% unhappy about this administration and congress, maybe we need to find new leaders to draft a new Declaration of Independence, put it out onto a forum like “move on dot org.” and get a dialog going about what’s needs to be addressed and deliver it to these criminals.
Watch the Bush Sr. quote in context with many things that Bush and McClellan said about the CIA leak. It makes today’s action by Bush even more nauseating”¦
Here’s the link for the above comment… Sorry. Check it out. It’s outrageous.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=T6L6x0oim-w
{ED NOTE: That link was broken. You may have meant this one. — BF}
The Democrats are banking that when push comes to shove in 2008, we will vote for them over any given Rethuglican and forgive them for being ballless jerks who condone and allow treason and high crimes.
And, of course, it won’t matter, because the game is rigged.
Yeah, Emma, I “hate.” I “hate” Rethuglicans because I LOVE this damn country, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Magna Carta, and what we are SUPPOSED to stand for.
People, your biggest problem is NOT Bush, Cheney, Libby, etc….
Your biggest problem is the lemmings, like OMSmedia, who allow corporatist neo-fascists like this to gain power – snickering while he/she and his/her country is being severely porked in the rear.
“”I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.””
And if I let Scooter be imprisoned he would tell everybody about 911 ,the war in Iraq and the soon to come war with Iran .What would you have done if you were the King ?
GWB
OMSmedia, you might think it’s worth “snickering” because you’d rather see Democracy destroyed and a lot of those like us fly off the handle with words showing that we’re unhinged over this news. You can bet though that if all of us more peace loving types are this angry and showing our anger with words, that others aren’t going to stop there and that this “peaceful” nation and civilized society won’t be that way for very much longer. You had better hope that you have a reservation in Wal-Mart’s “bunker”, or there might be a few of these other folk you might regret later “snickering” at. I wouldn’t be one of those people, but there are many out there that this sort of news won’t settle with without some pretty strong reaction. Look Out! As long as these bums are in power, it’s only going to get worse!
Now we know that Libby was going to talk and that he had let Cheney know about it. Probably thru his lawyers.
What was not expected was the sudden and immediate timing of the clemency.
They seem to be scared of being found out, so they have sent a signal that anyone of “Just Us” who goes down will be pardoned … so don’t worry, be happy, the Pardoner in Chief has the neoCons’ backs.
Now people will see the Department of Justice Just Us for what it has become under the bushie fascist model: lawless.
Agent 99 #12
You are correct. The constitution does not allow presidential pardons when impeachment has already taken place.
If Cheney is impeached in the House and the Senate convicts him, bushie cannot pardon him:
(Article II, Section 2, emphasis added).
So Nancy, is impeachment still off the table?
“Libby Sentence commutation Hypocrisy
Before getting outraged over Bush’s commutation of the rest of Libby’s prison sentence, realize first that he is not getting off scott-free like many of the 140 people Clinton pardoned, he still has to pay a $250,000 fine. Second, it is not “unprecedented”: take a look at the 140 people Clinton pardoned on his way out of office including Cocaine Dealers, 16 FALN terrorists, and those willing to pay Hillary’s family members 6 figures for their pardons. Sound unbelievable? Check Wikipedia –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi...ns_controversy
for the details. You need to learn to pick your battles. Bash Bush for not tightening up our borders or for not stemming congress’ profligate spending, sure, but it is hyprocritical to call commuting part of Libby’s sentence “unprecedented”. Might want to do a little research next time before posting.
#33 Bryan,
this is different. This is TREASON. This is a National Security problem. None of these bush crony should have a security clearance or be snooping on Americans. they can’t protect their own computers, their own databases, their own secrets, or OUR fucking borders!
What needs to happen is a giant purge of all the scum of the past, who now work in the current. We don’t need Negroponte’s, Kissinger’s, Rove’s working in our deepest levels of security. These fucking criminals should not even be IN our fucking government!
Why is it you or I would get a several month security audit and these motherfuckers can just do whatever they fucking want? They are not leaders they are criminals, and they were not elected, or put there BY THE PEOPLE, they were put there by the court, and NOW the court is owned.
If you removed some data from a Secret vault and left it laying at a fucking MacDonald’s, or at an airport bathroom, your life would be FUCKED!!!
In effect this is exactly what they are doing, and worse! They might even take hardware out and give it to the enemy. This is way beyond loose lips sink ships, this is treason. It is costing lives! The fucking terrorists ARE RUNNING our government.
I ain’t saying that there ain’t good people IN government, there are, there are parts of government that don’t have anything to do with this. But you look at just about everything that has to do with controlling peoples lives and your gonna quickly see a pattern of nasty shit.
Sadly, I do not see a solution, as we no longer have the right to vote, or protest effectively. What the fuck is a free speech zone, and what can you or I do about the fourth estate not covering electronic voting machine failures?