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The headline at CNN is Scooter Skates.
The headline at MSNBC is No Prison.
The story at McClatchy reads:
President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Monday, keeping him from serving a two-and-a-half year prison term meted out in the CIA leak case.Calling the sentence “excessive,” Bush’s last minute commutation came after a federal court refused to allow Libby to remain free pending the appeal of his perjury conviction. Libby, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case still faces a $250,000 fine.
More to come…
Isn’t obstruction of justice a High Crime and Misdemeanor? Can we impeach the stupid SOB now?
Yes.
We should.
I called and e-mailed my congressman this afternoon and said that I want them impeached, and I want their hides on the wall. Also e-mailed both my senators (all three are Democrats).
Emptywheel put it well: not only does Scooter walk, Shrub lied when he called it excessive prison time, because the sentence was in the middle of the recommended range. And Libby never expressed any sign of remorse, either. (How many sentences has Shrub commuted in the last seven years, anyway? Ten? Fifteen? He doesn't do it for people who've done the full remorse and restitution bit; why should Libby get it?)
Can we do an official change of national flag, to the Black Flag of piracy? Seeing as we're not a nation run by lasw but by influence?
(I'm planning to stay p*ssed off for, oh, two or three years. Or until we get a lawful good administration again.)
Wow. Not even the hint of a fig leaf. Not even a quiet word after a month or two. It beggars belief.
See, Scooter's a good man, not like that Karla Tucker woman.
Impeachment? Whoa there sport, it's not like there was a blowjob involved or anything. Keep some perspective, people.
Seriously though, let's just throw out the pretense that we're still living in a Democracy right now. We're just going through the motions.
'If someone gives him a blow job, can we impeach him?'
(Probably only with video of it being done, on the South Lawn, at noon, on Sunday, with Laura, a dead boy, and a live sheep also present.)
If it takes a blowjob I'll give him the blowjob myself.
The prosecutor in the case, Fitzgerald, had a brief comment:
CHICAGO Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the Republican-appointed federal prosecutor in the Plame/CIA leak case, released a brief statement tonight, after President Bush commuted the prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
It read: "We fully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative."We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as 'excessive.' The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.
"Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process.”
Some additional perspective, from former US Pardon Attorney Margaret Colgate Love, Begging Bush's Pardon:
But pardoning has fallen on hard times. Bush has been more sparing in his exercise of the constitutional pardon power than any president in the last 100 years, including his father. He has pardoned only 113 people in more than six years in office and denied more than 1,000 pardon applications. He has granted only three of more than 5,000 requests for sentence reduction from federal prisoners. Many hundreds of applications remain to be acted on.
By contrast, six years into his presidency, President Reagan had pardoned more than 300 people and commuted 13 sentences — and that was at a time when federal prisoners could still hope for parole. Going further back, President Nixon issued 863 pardons and 60 commutations; President Ford issued 382 pardons and 22 commutations; President Carter issued 534 pardons and 29 commutations.And Libby scoots to the head of the line somehow. Figures.
The Times opinion piece is up already, and it's lovely.
I really like the last sentence of the NYT op/ed:
"He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell."
Libby will no doubt be offered a sinecure at Heritage or AEI within days, along with a "loan" to pay the $250,000 fine.
Proposed Constitutional amendment:
Section 1. The President shall not, without the consent of Congress, grant a pardon or reprieve for any felony which was committed while the felon was an employee of the executive branch.
Section 2. The President shall not, without the consent of Congress, grant a pardon or reprieve for any felony in which the felon was an accomplice, accessory, or co-conspirator with a felon described in Section 1.
Section 3. The President shall not, without the consent of Congress, grant a pardon or reprieve for the felony of obstruction of justice, when such a felony impedes the investigation of a crime described in Section 1.
Can any of the legal beagles improve on the wording here?
Seth: You might post that over at The Next Hurrah or at Firedoglake. They have lawyers reading and commenting.
And over at Talking Points Memo, I learn that a full pardon would have left Libby with no Fifth Amendment right. This way, he still doesn't have to answer questions.
Neat.
Stephanie@14: Don't see the 5th as being a big deal; can't convict him again for the same offense anyway, and Fitzgerald already determined there's not enough evidence to charge him with anything else. So giving him immunity wouldn't actually be giving him anything. On Countdown, John Dean even suggested Fitzgerald should do that -- grant Libby immunity, and ask him all the same questions again. If we get different answers, we learn something; if we get the same answers, convict Libby of perjury again (new offense.)
I can hardly wait to see John Dean's commentary on Findlaw.
Trying to e-mail my rep--Earl Blumenauer. The server's not responding. D'ya suppose there's a lot of reaction going on right now?
God. I thought I'd already gone through this in 1974.
What does it say that the only thing about this that is surprising to me is the fact that it was a commutation, and not a full pardon?
Seriously, there is nothing this administration could possibly do to surprise me at this point.
Wake me up when the tanks start rolling in the streets (which I reckon will happen sometime around November 3, 2008)...
Scooter done bad things,
But he lied for chimp's Bestie:
I can has pardon?
Actually, there is a legal-technical question as to whether the President - any of them - has the authority to commute a sentence. The Constitution says he can grant only reprieves and pardons. (FWIW, since these guys are ignoring it anyway.)
They do. The Supreme Court interpreted it to mean the President can pardon, partially pardon, commute, respite sentences, remit fines, etc. Check out the DOJ's page on it.
And have Cheney assume the Presidency? Really?
Rich McAllister@15: It isn't that Libby's first-amendment right protects him from further prosecution; it is that it shields him from being compelled to testify about his accomplices' crimes.
Before beginning impeachment proceedings, I'd like a list of the 67 senators likely to vote for conviction. That's the same question I asked in 1998 re: Clinton. The Republicans seemed to expect a huge sweep in the 1998 elections that would have given them 67 or more seats in the Senate; when they didn't get it, they were left with their pants down. Assuming all the Democrats vote for it plus Bernie Sanders, who are the remaining 17?
I don't like the idea of impeachment for several reasons. First, since I assume we're not seriously proposing President Cheney, a double impeachment is unprecedented. Even had Clinton been convicted, we'd still have had President Gore. However wrongly, a lot of people will see this as a power grab by the Democrats.
Second, we're looking at most a year off the Bush/Cheney administration (I can't see the process taking less than 6 months). Third, what if Bush is convicted but Cheney is not? President Cheney again.
At this point I feel that there are so many things that Bush *needs* to be impeached for -- not needs in the sense that it'd be good to have him gone, or needs in the sense that they are clearly, unmistakably impeachable offenses, but needs in the sense that Bush's getting away with this will do grievous, probably permanent harm to the republic -- that I feel like impeaching him once would not even be sufficient. Whatever we impeached him on, it would imply that the many other crimes -- high crimes, the highest of crimes, crimes against our beloved country (not to mention so many others) -- he was skating on.
How could we not impeach him for the signing statement, by which he has openly announced his intention to wantonly disregard the very laws he was signing, attacking the very structure of our constitution?
How could we could we not impeach him for his admitted spying on American citizens in direct violation of FISA and the fourth amendment (the extent of which remains wholly unknown, although it is likely to be not simply for security, since those would have clearly been approved by the FISA court)?
How can we not impeach him for sanctioning torture, in direct violation of American law, the Geneva conventions, and the basic principles of morality?
How can we not impeach him for imprisoning American citizens without trial, in defiance of habeas corpus -- indefinitely?
How can we not impeach him for running secret prisons around the world, sending prisoners off to be tortured in other countries, picking up random civilians (many picked out randomly by bounty hunters) and holding them indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay?
And how can we not impeach him for waging an aggressive war based on false claims -- a war that has left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, not to mention thousands of Americans -- a war that is surely, finally, the greatest of his many crimes?
Not to mention whatever secret crimes this most secretive administration has committed without public knowledge.
Obstruction of justice? Of course. Nixon was going to be impeached for it; Bush should be to.
But it's not enough. It leaves to many crimes -- high crimes, the highest -- unanswered.
That they were committed wounds the republic. To leave them unpunished would wound it permanently.
But how unlikely is it that he will be impeached even once?
And even if a miracle occurs and he is -- it would not be enough. It could not be enough. Not enough to restore our country to us.
At this point, I don't know what would. Or if anything can.
No kidding? The President of the United States can pardon (etc) convicted offenders simply as an exercise of his executive power? And, if I read the comments correctly, this act is not subject to oversight or reversal by the Congress or the Courts? And he can do it without formal advice from anybody?
Good grief. The Governor-general here can pardon felons convicted in Federal courts, but only on the advice of the Executive Council - essentially, of the Cabinet. No one person has that power, and if Parliament were to demur, it could rescind such a pardon by legislation. At the very least a Parliamentary debate could be forced by the Opposition. Is no such procedure possible in the US?
Stephen Frug @ 24: Well said. It's not going to happen, but it's nice to dream ...
Dave@25: You got it.
As to the checks and balances you hear about; well, Congress is supposed to have the power of subpoena for oversight, and the power of the purse to cut off unwanted action --- but Dubya has signalled his willingness to flout both. Neither of those is applicable to a pardon, though.
Beyond that, there's only impeachment, and even given perfect party discipline among Senate Democrats (including Lieberman!) that would also require finding seventeen Republican Senators who'd put loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to party. Which, in this day and age, is probably asking too much...
This is some pretty scary stuff. I haven't liked Bush for some time; this basically gives me even more reason not to like him.
I know he has the prerogative as President, but like Uncle Jim points out, obstruction of justice is a crime unto itself. The President of the United States should be no more immune to the implications than any other citizen.
If Bush isn't impeached, what can anyone ever be impeached for?
I haven't seen anything like this since the Saturday Night Massacre.
23, Alan: You make good points--in fact, up until today I was thinking pretty much along those lines; but I would certainly support the impeachment of Cheney. Get him out, anyway. He's ignoring Article II. High Crimes, bitch.
What I'd really like to see is the following poll, with the following preface:
1) George W. Bush has almost certainly committed high crimes and broken the law.
2) Despite this fact, it is extremely unlikely that any Republican Senators will vote to remove him from office, even if there are mountains of evidence to convict.
Knowing these two facts--that Bush is guilty, but that he won't be removed--would you support impeachment and a trial anyway?
(one could modify this to include info on why impeachment is important re: historical importance, the evidence a trial will uncover, the possibility of prosecuting Bush in 2009, etc.…)
ARRRRRRRGHHHHH. I can't believe this is happening.
I used to think President Bush was at least a common sense man, thats the only view of him I hadn’t changed so disrespect. But all things change, and now I realize Bush, and his horrible henchman, have no honor anymore. They only watch over themselves, breaking the Constitution’s back with every decision, pushing the carefully chosen powers to their limits. Their offices used to hold basic respect, but they have sapped all that away, for power, for money, for whatever else they saw fit.
Let us choose this time as our start, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This isn’t simple politicians doing the normal politicians job. This was a drop in a already overflowing bucket that has the threat of drowning our great republic.
Let us fight back now. By protesting, by contacting elected officials, tell them this isn’t going to stand. Tell them the name Bush, will resonate as ten times worse as Nixon. For Nixon only brought his corruption upon this nation. Bush has brought his stupidity and lust for power, upon the entire world, putting us all in grave danger.
James Madison, "father of the Constitution", specifically cited impeachment as the remedy for this kind of Presidential misconduct at the Constitutional Convention. But hey, given the Bush boys' rad ideas about the Geneva Conventions, I'm sure they've got some wonderful things to say about that much earlier Convention in Philadelphia...
I expected a pardon, not a commuted sentence. I'm just as pissed off as I would have been had Bush pardoned Libby outright. A pardon would have said; he's guilty, but he's my guy, and I'm pardoning him because he was loyal to me, and because I can. F**k you. The commuted sentence says, He's guilty, but he's in my tribe and people like me don't have to serve time, even when we're guilty. We're better than that. F**k you.
Seth, tinkering with the Constitution for this is a waste of time, though I approve the sentiment. P J, I kind of like the flag notion... Black flag, yeah -- with an upraised middle finger printed on it.
When the history of this sorry time is written, I hope the #%^$%^$ donkey-#$%#$%%$# panty#$%#$# chewer of genital warts who LET BUSH'S PERSONAL LAWYER slip into the A.G.'s office get all due condemnation.
Really, what were they thinking?
I don't think you're going to get an impeachment on issuing a pardon (commutation?). But man, how I'd love to know what sort of pressure was applied by Libby and his friends to get this done now. What was Libby going to spill?
Can I suggest this post by Kung Fu Monkey as wonderful reading on this topic? It might even be the first step of a General Theory of the Bush Administration.
A small taste of what the post says:
According to the Dictionary of Video Game Theory, an "exploit" is... "a case where a player knowingly uses a flaw in a game to gain an unfair advantage".
[SNIP]
[T]he Cheney Administration has discovered... the "exploit" within the United States Government. As I watched Congressmen and Senators stumble and fumble and thrash, unable to bring to heel men and women who were plainly lying to them under oath, unable to eject from public office toadies of a boot-licking expertise unseen since Versailles, it struck me. The sheer, simple elegance of it. The "exploit".
...and I'll leave it on that cliff-hanger, in hopes people go read it.
Dave #25: The American Founders were of their own time, which meant that, despite their successful rebellion against the Crown, they still hadn't entirely rid themselves of the notion that a King was a necessary component of a functioning government.
Michael #31: (blink) Common sense? Bush, possessed of common sense? I would have thought it was obvious long ago that he is a narcissist -- a kind of psychological dysfunction that is essentially incompatible with reality.
Unfortunately for him, Mr. Bush is not in a position to choose a successor who will, as Gerald Ford did, pardon his predecessor for any crimes he might have committed during his presidency.
I was daydreaming this afternoon and I thought of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
And I thought: what if, when 2009 rolls around, the way you get out of being prosecuted for your role in caging black voters or selectively prosecuting "vote fraud" cases or corruptly obtaining a no-bid contract from Homeland Security or, you know, imprisoning and torturing innocent people, what if the way you avoid prison is to sit before a commission and relate, in as much detail as needed, exactly what you did, why it was criminal, and why you believed that you would never be held to account for it?
Really, it's not that important to me that the President of the United States be impeached by the Senate. What's important to me is that Americans learn unequivocally what the men they chose to lead them really were. They are not going to learn of the contempt in which this Administration holds them through ritualized name-calling in Congress.
I have more extreme and unlikelier fancies from time to time. I like the one where the Democratic candidates for President travel en bloc to the Naval Observatory to tell the man who lives there that if he refuses to cooperate with them they'll let Interpol and the ICC know that the United States government will neither interfere with nor protest the extrajudicial rendition of American citizens accused of war crimes during the second Gulf War.
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LRS!
[posted from 68.96.232.47]
When David Frank is disemvowelled, maybe I'll understand "You have miserable live that scream out to be lived" better.
The reason Bush commuted Libby's sentence, rather than pardoning him, was to leave him his Fifth Amendment rights. He needs those because he's still filing appeals. If the judge had let Libby stay out of jail until the appeals were finished, Bush probably wouldn't have done anything now.
And yes, David Frank, as I said on the previous thread, Democrats pardon people important to them, too.
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[posted from 68.96.232.47]
My one sort of... against the grain comment here is this:
Libby had absolutely no reason to blackmail or threaten Bush to get this commutation. There is no "fear of what Libby would squeal to get out of jail."
Why? Because Bush is not a "let'em'swing" type of guy. His whole presidency has been an exercise in mutual back-scratching. Libby's a friend (even, it seems, a loyal one), Bush has the power. The deal is done.
What I wonder, is if Marilee @41 is right... if the judge had let Libby stay free until the appeals were over... would Bush have held his tongue? Would Libby have gone to, and stayed in, jail because Bush was out of office by the time the last appeal is finished? Would Bush have pardoned him on his last night? It's all pointless speculation,
Lastly, the idea of "Libby is suffering enough" from the fine, and the loss of his public office, and legal career is sort of jaw-droppingly lame. I can't even find a word better than lame... it's just... calls out for eye-rolling and teenaged epithets.
I hope that all will be calling the WH tomorrow to publicly, and politely express their displeasure with the commutation. Correntewire has posted a number of numbers from the WH b/c it is uncertain if we can get through on the main numbers, especially as they shut them down today.
It pains me deeply to say it, but we will never get the kind of closure we want on Bush or any of his immediate cronies. Even assuming the Democrats have the guts to try going after some of the criminals that Bush has enabled, they're not going to get many of them, and certainly none of the big fish, most especially not Bush or Cheney. The Bushies have gamed the whole system successfully up to now, and ill-gotten gains will pay for one large boatload of lawyers, allowing them to continue to game it.
There may be something we as a country can do about long-term damage control, though. The single biggest task ahead is to root out all the little bushes who are trying to slither in to the system now; the ones who are trying to control the military with religion and corporate graft, or to control the media by buying it up and telling it to lie to us 24x7. We need to convince this country that the Bushies, both present and future, are more dangerous to us, and better organized and funded, than Al Qaeda. They've certainly done more damage to our institutions, and may have killed more people, than Al Qaeda.
Bruce @ #45, one of the things I heard today (maybe it was Linda Greenhouse of the NYT on Fresh Air) was that roughly 2/3 of all judicial appointees now in office were put there by Republican Presidents. It's going to take a long time to replace them.
I was in the midst of composing an answer to Mr. Frank and wondering how long it would take Our Hosts to disemvowel him. Glad to see TNH beat me to the draw.
Jane
Absolute Power
The Emporer has no clothes
America weeps
For Christ's sake! This admistration should be working for the people and abide to the constitution of this country.
We really should fire these bastards. They have not been doing the job they made an oath for!!!
I found it hard to believe but it's true. The United States is now a third world country with a dicktator at the helm. May God have mercy on your souls.
Well, that clarifies the US legal system usefully for us non-Americans. It was already clear that civil cases and many criminal ones came down to "who has most money?" It's now also clear that the law claims no moral standing, and is simply a question of "we'll enforce it or not according to our opinion of you." This is no real suprise, since that's the way foreign policy has been working for most of the junta's period in office. But now there's no room for doubt.
As the Bushies continue to whine "Marc Rich, Marc Rich" they never mention that Rich's lawyer that negotiated for the pardon was none other than Scooter Libby.
It's damned obvious now that that little affair was just another trap for Clinton. The machine would have been on him now just as much for denial of that pardon as it is for the granting.
The United States is now a third world country with a dicktator at the helm.
I don't know if this was a typo or a deliberate pun... but it's perfect.
What does Mr. Libby have on this administration? I would guess a great deal of information that needs to be kept close to the chest.....thus, no prison time and maybe time to get the whole thing appealed. Of course, some money may have to enter into the deal?
What does Mr. Libby have on this administration? I would guess a great deal of information that needs to be kept close to the chest.....thus, no prison time and maybe time to get the whole thing appealed. Of course, some money may have to enter into the deal?
What does Mr. Libby have on this administration? I would guess a great deal of information that needs to be kept close to the chest.....thus, no prison time and maybe time to get the whole thing appealed. Of course, some money may have to enter into the deal?
Well, I only hope this will finally force someone in "Deep America" to rethink their allegiances.
The Republican party successfully killed the Republic in less than a decade. I wonder if they'll change their name... "the Oligarchic Party" sounds catchy enough, and I'm sure people will keep voting them while hoping that, one day, they will be oligarchs too.
PJ Evans @ 1:
>(I'm planning to stay p*ssed off for, oh, two or
>three years. Or until we get a lawful good
>administration again.)
Do you really think the next administration will be "lawful good", whether it's Democrats or Republicans?
That seems extremely unlikely, given how messed up both parties are.
Tony Hendra is in the running for bluntest (and perhaps best) one line summary of this affair: War Criminal Commutes Sentence of Convicted Perjurer at Behest of Traitor.
P.J. @ #1, you blacken the name of pirates by comparing them to this crew of jackanapes. Honestly, even pirates were more democratic; they at least had a code.
I think if we can't get rid of Cheney first, removing Bush from office would be disastrous. And I'm not sure we can get rid of Cheney first.
On they other hand, impeaching Bush and not removing him from office would be a good thing in itself. Not as good as kicking them all out and putting them in prison for life (I'm against the death penalty on principle, even though several of them clearly deserve it), but a step in the right direction.
They can't surprise me with their scumminess any more. There's no limit to their perfidy, no vileness to which they will not stoop.
Apparently, however, they can still surprise me with their blatancy. They're not even pretending to follow the law any more.
Every time the Shrub's administration convinces me that they can't get any lower into the moral cesspool, they surprise me and sink deeper still.
Anyone who does not believe this deal was done months and months ago... Libby takes the fall and gets out of jail free. 250,000 dollars to this group is beyond laughable.
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64.12.116.201
What is Bob on about?
Is this another one of those posts that's going to make more sense disemvowelled?
Third world healthcare, third-world election-rigging, third-world justice ....
The reactions to Scooter's get-out-of-jail-card from the republicans are depressingly enthusiastic --- isn't there even one person on that side who can muster a tut-tut?
"I don't understand what everyone is so upset about."
You wouldn't Bob -- you wouldn't...
Of course Bob wouldn't. He wouldn't even understand why commas generally go after a word instead of before one. Not that understanding the rules of punctuation automatically lets you understand the Rule of Law, but someone who can't even bother with the former is almost guaranteed not to grasp the latter.
#29 JDM: If Bush isn't impeached, what can anyone ever be impeached for?
Well, he certainly can't be impeached for this.
Article II, Section 2:
The President ... shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Anyway, let's look at the history here. There have been three serious attempts to impeach Presidents.
Andrew Johnson was impeached essentially over the fight with the Radical Republicans over how "hard" Reconstruction was to be. This was a political fight. They almost got him, missing conviction by one vote, as I recall.
Richard Nixon was about to be impeached for a whole raft of things that almost certainly would have led to his conviction; he resigned and was pardoned by Ford. Should Ford have been impeached for pardoning him?
Clinton was impeached because the Republicans hated his guts; obviously political from start to finish. It was a joke and they never came close on a conviction.
Impeach Bush if you want (as someone asked though, where are the votes?), but you're not going to get him for performing an act he is specifically empowered to perform under the Constitution.
My advice is to just get through the next 18 months without blowing a gasket.
Bob, that's low tactics. We all know Rethuglicans are illiterate jerks, but your imitation goes beyond parody.
You want Bush's supporters to look like a pack of inbred, mouth breathing, synaptically challenged cretins, sure. But you don't have to work quite so hard at making them sound that way, especially under the current administration. Combining the punctuation mistakes with the random spaces, misspellings, creativity with the past and general ranting is overkill - who's going to believe it?
I mean, really. Who is going to believe that even WonderMonkey's minions are so utterly lacking in feck?
Next time you try and mimic a Repuglycan, ratchet the rhetoric down a notch. Seriously.
People, people. You're just not thinking 4th dimensionally.
This is not about Libby's prison sentence being excessive (it was). This is not about Bush showing utter disdain for the law or the separation of powers (he does). And this isn't even about Bush kissing Republican party a** (he is).
This is about PROTECTING DICK CHENEY.
As long as the focus is on Libby, and to a lesser extent, on Bush, it keeps the focus OFF Cheney.
What does it tell you when the president is working this hard to protect the vice president? (and FYI, Cheney learned the secrets of real VP power from none other than Georgie's daddy, Bush the Elder, who was Nixon's CIA director and Reagan's VP. Cheney just didn't learn the stealth lesson well enough.)
People - it is not Rove, Ashcroft, or Rumsfeld:
it is Cheney, Cheney, Cheney.
If we're going to impeach someone, let's make sure we get the right guy.
Soon.
Yes it that and contempt of Congress and Contempt of the American People as well- I know the last isn't a recogmnised Felony but it SHOULD BE.
If we had a half decent press there'd be special editions devotedto this & Hour long specials on CBS. Even Nixon wasn't this bare-assed.
DaveL@69 --- James Madison disagrees with you about impeachment as a remedy for pardons of accomplices to Presidential crimes, as I already noted above.
I think Cheney, like some fantasy vizier behind the caliph's throne, prefers to work clandestinely, cloaked in darkness, if this article in the Daily Telegraph is anything to go by.
I say, impeach Bush by all means, flush Senator Palpatine from cover and let his machinations be played out in the public eye, rather than hidden in an obscured office.
C.MacLean@71: BINGO!!! This is all about Cheney.
Last night, while watching Olbermann, I half-remembered a story I read a long time ago, enough that I don't remember either author or title. It was (I think)about an arms dealer who finds out that the lake in his property, inhabited by a mating pair of swans, protects the world from perpetual war. At the end of the story, he orders the swans killed and the lake drained.
That's Dick Cheney. Evil for profit's sake. It's freaking terrifying.
Patrick one honored me by putting one of my quotes in his sidebar. I don't think it's operable any longer. America seems to have forfeited its greatest products and all it has left is the gun. God help us.
Shorter Bob (#64):
A Democrat had sex[1], and another may have driven while drunk[1] and injured someone while so doing[1], and that means that the law does not apply to Republicans.
[1] And obviously this is only a minor peccadillo wrong a Republican does it.
DaveL #69: Well, you are likely right that you aren't going to be able to impeach Bush for giving Libby the Get Out Of Jail Free card. But the reason isn't constitutional, it's political. See #32 from "Charles Dodgson".
Pardoning a confederate to hide a President's own illegal actions was specifically mentioned by Madison as grounds for impeachment when the issue of the Presidential pardon power was first being debated.
Ideally you would impeach them both, but if you can only get rid of one... President Cheney.
Bush without Cheney would be activated by random petty spite, which is scary enough in a President... but that is still a little better than outright purposeful evil.
Should Ford have been impeached for pardoning him [Nixon]?Probably not, since as you point out, he had the authority to do so. But he most certainly should have been hounded out of office at the next election and gone down in infamy as the man who let Nixon off the hook. The fact that he wasn't - that he was actually praised for what was, until recently, one of the most corrupt acts in American history - seems to me to indicate that the fix was already in, in the American media, that long ago.
Nixon was out, but with impunity, and Ford kept business running as usual. Sound familiar?
Things like this make me wonder whether it is still possible to repair democracy in the United States, or whether my loyalty to those principles the US was founded on - you know, liberty, democracy, rule of law, separation of church and state - would be better served by going somewhere where those principles are still respected and upheld. (If there is such a place.)
There's nothing special about American land or the American people, but there once was something special about our government and political traditions. Can we get that back? And if so, how?
I continue to insist -- wearily -- that an attempt to impeach Bush and Cheney ('cause you know we'd have to get then both out) would be a very bad idea. First of all, it wouldn't work. Second, it would rip the heart out of the hope for national reconciliation led by President Obama. (Yes, I still have hope that there will be reconciliation, though it's pretty clear that about 25% of the country is just lost to authoritarian and/or militaristic dreams.) Do I want Bush and Cheney gone. Oh God yes. But Congress won't do it, and the MSM for sure will not cooperate with such an effort, and without the media impeachment will go nowhere. Clinton was impeached with the shameless, vicious, gleeful cooperation of the media. Given that, the question is, how can the Democrats use the political process to limit further damage to our country? Repeal the Military Commissions Act. Investigate everything they can: pre-war intelligence, spying on Americans, the firing of the federal prosecutors, Cheney's office, Guantanamo, everything. Unite (insofar as they are capable of doing so) around a candidate for 2008. Hold the line on conservative federal judges at any level. Filibuster if that's what it takes to keep them out. HOLD the line on attacking Iran. Don't authorize it, don't fund it.
C.MacLean @ 71
What 'excessive sentence' are you talking about? Libby got one that was within the sentencing guidelines for the crimes of which he was found guilty - those same guidelines that the Republicans keep saying are too lenient. He would have been in a minimum security prison (not unlike the one Martha Stewart was in) for maybe two years, allowing time off for good behavior.
Bush has obstructed justice by allowiing Libby to not serve a day of his well-earned sentence, and Libby gets to keep his right not to incriminate himself in testifying in court or before a committee. This is part and parcel with the obstruction of justice that Libby did in blocking the investigation of Ms Plame's working identity being revealed. Since Cheney was pretty clearly involved in that, and probably Rove, Bush and Cheney clearly benefit personally and directly from keeping Scooter from telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
('Soft on crime' Democrats? Cr*p. The GOP just showed their true colors, which are 'it's okay if you're one of us'.)
I'm not that much in favor of national reconciliation. It was reconciliation when Ford pardoned Nixon, and that's part of what landed us in this mess we're in today.
Had Nixon and his cronies done jail time we likely wouldn't have seen Cheney or Rumsfeld on the national stage.
I'm at the weary place where I think that if impeachment isn't an option that armed insurrection is the alternative.
#81:
Repeal the Military Commissions Act.
Investigate everything they can: pre-war intelligence, spying on Americans, the firing of the federal prosecutors, Cheney's office, Guantanamo, everything.
Unite (insofar as they are capable of doing so) around a candidate for 2008.
Yes, the media will savage them - but that's a given no matter what they do. Most mass media in this country are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Republican Party and that will continue through this election cycle regardless of what the Democratic Party does. So just live with it. Fix it in '09. Until then trust the American people to know bullshit when they smell it, at least one more time.
Hold the line on conservative federal judges at any level. Filibuster if that's what it takes to keep them out.
HOLD the line on attacking Iran. Don't authorize it, don't fund it.
You have to stop thinking in terms of laws and legal authority, as if they were an effective restraint on the Administration's behavior. They aren't. This shows that as clearly as possible. Libby is guilty, he's convicted - but he won't be punished. Bush has just publicly proclaimed that anyone who works for him is above the law - and as long as he owns the prosecutors and the commutation/pardon powers, they are. If he orders the suspension of elections, or orders the Democratic candidate arrested on suspicion of terrorism with no public evidence whatsoever... who's going to stop him?
But, if you can only get rid of Bush, try having an inauguration ceremony for Darth Cheney which is full of loud and unexpected noises:
Swearer: Do you, state your name, swear to uphold and protect the Constitution from
Cheney: wah, steak-yerch-name, wah wah wah.
Swearer: Scandinavian heavy metal bands
GDANG! GDANG!
Cheney: urk!
Swearer: Random attacks by CGI dinosaurs!
CGI Dinosaurs: ROOOAWWWWR!
Cheney: urk!
Swearer: Being beaten about the head by plastic dinosaurs! *bop* bop*
Cheney: urk!
And so on and so forth, until that damn red glow in his eyes dims.
He who has no shame
Cannot be made to suffer
By public shaming.
James @ 83
I'll give them a choice:
* Door #1: resignation, with possible criminal charges of various kinds following
* Door #2: impeachment, with possible loss of pensions and other benefits
* Door #3: lots of people with pitchforks and torches
IM IN UR OVUL OFFIS
HELPNG MY FRENZ
*loads up some Billy Bragg*
*sets iPod to stun*
I say screw impeachment. Keep the focus on the @ssh0l#s you can actually convict. Force Bush to pardon someone every month. Keep working up the food chain till all that's left is a White House staffed by pardoned convicts, plus Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.
And have The Hague deal with those last three. They aren't felons. They're war criminals. I'm starting a collection to buy three plane tickets for those 3 jokers, departing the day after inauguration. One way.
Kagro X found this:
“The following is from a report written and released by the Judiciary Committee in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis.
In the [Constitutional] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to “pardon crimes which were advised by himself” or, before indictment or conviction, “to stop inquiry and prevent detection.” James Madison responded:
[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty…
Madison went on to [say] contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected.”
Dave @ 76 -- Thank you. Seriously. I wasn't being all that snarky when I asked what Bob was on about; I couldn't parse most of that comment. I could tell it was something like BUT THE CLENIS!, but couldn't follow much else.
George III Dun Took Mah Buckit
I'm too offended by this whole situation to say anything in words... even if my NDA (which expires after the heat death of the universe) didn't seem to limit my comments to the largely irrelevant.
"Law exists for those who are not wealthy, white, Republican men." -- The Gospel according to St Dick Cheney.
#73 Charles Dodgson: James Madison disagrees with you about impeachment as a remedy for pardons of accomplices to Presidential crimes, as I already noted above.
Yes he does (though I think Madison is speaking of the President as an accomplice, not the other way around), but if you read the whole section of the report (and the footnotes), you'll find that his position was hardly universal even then. Madison was generally a maximalist on the breadth of the impeachment power.
The precedents on the use of impeachment and the pardon since then have gone against him.
Pardon me for fixating on a very minor point, but ...
WHY is the White House general contact number turned off??
It can't possibly be because the Resident knew just how much outrage this decision was going to stir up and, as with everything else, doesn't want to hear it??
The image of Shrub sitting in the Oval Office (oh wait, he's NOT EVEN THERE) with his fingers in his ears and eyes screwed shut going "LALALALALALALAICAN'THEARYOU" doesn't even give me a giggle. That's how sad this whole situation is.
Chris at 84: You have to stop thinking in terms of laws and legal authority.
But we were talking about impeachment, which is the legal remedy provided in the Constitution for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If you don't want to impeach, and you don't seem to like my suggestions much, what do you suggest we do? Do you want to go right to the pitchforks?
Also, in suggesting that the Democrats unite behind a candidate, I didn't mean to imply that they should short-circuit the primary process. I'd be pissed as hell if they were to do that, because the fixers and power brokers in the Democratic party want Hillary Clinton to win, and I don't want to have to vote for her. But once the choice has been made, I want serious party unity, and someone should stuff Joe Lieberman in a bucket.
Someone who is good at linking, please link to Kung-Fu Monkey. The guy's on fire. Or go look yourselves.
BTW, Jim, when I suggest we're going to need reconciliation, I wasn't talking about everyone holding hands around a campfire and singing Kumbaya. Hell no. Let's impeach Gonzalez. Let's de-fund the f**king VP's office. Let's expose the folks who ordered Abu Gharaib. Let's indict everyone we can indict... I like the idea of forcing Bush to pardon everyone who ever worked for him, one after the other, month after month, as we get closer and closer to January 2009. Let's get creative... But I think impeaching Bush is tactically a waste of time, the Rethuglicans will not do it.
Jim MacDonald @29: I haven't seen anything like this since the Saturday Night Massacre.
Really? I'm thinking this isn't as bad as Poppy Bush's 1992 Christmas pardons of the Iran-Contra conspirators.
Andrew Sullivan gives us the bumper sticker version: "Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby."
Bob, you ignorant slut:
18 USC PART I CHAPTER 79
§ 1621. Perjury generally
Whoever—
(1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
(2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true;
is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States.
Any material matter. Since the questions about Lewinsky weren't material (as specfically ruled by a judge later) Clinton didn't commit perjury.
He lied, but it wasn't a crime.
Further, it was a civil case, not a criminal one, so the "justice" he might have been obstructing was private justice, not public.
Never mind that Libby's perjury was about an issue where the national interest of the United States was harmed (bcause we took a setback which will take at least a decade to recover from; in the area of nuclear proliferation. If Iran is trying to make a bomb, some of the places/ways in which they might get more material are now more open to them; as a direct result of this perjury).
George Tenet, Bush's guy at the CIA said it needed to be investigated.
The DOJ, run by Ashcroft agreed.
Fitzgeral, appointed by Bush, did the work.
A Grand Jury found issued a true bill.
A Bush appointed Judge presided.
Twelve citizens, "good and true" heard the evidence, saw the case put on by Libby's million-dollar legal team, and convicted him.
Yep, he was railroaded. It was all political.
One of the people arguing for Libby's commutation (William G. Otis) just argued a case at the Supreme Court arguing, for the Gov't that a guy convicted of lying to a grand jury ought not be given a lighter sentence (because of his good record, military service, and the 80-100 people whose livelihoods depended on him) because the sentencing guidelines are fair and just.
But for Libby, (two and a half years, not five) not so much.
It makes one think the real issue is actually the personal relationship of this convicted felon to the president, more than the question of fairness of sentence.
Impeachment proceedings against the entire administration - the full cabinet; all the political appointees - have to start. It's the only way to prevent Bush from pardoning everyone.
Impeachment proceedings against the entire administration - the full cabinet; all the political appointees - have to start. It's the only way to prevent Bush from pardoning everyone.
Is the Attorney General technically impeachable? I thought that was for judges and elected officials, and that everyone else gets handled by the regular criminal system (or the military justice system, in cases of military personnel serving in the Executive Branch), in which case a presidential pardon could put the AG back in office again.
Lizzy @ #98, Easily done: http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com
Just had a horrible afterthought: can the theoretical impeachment of Dick Cheney be nullified by a presidential pardon, placing him right back in office?
Libby is now facing an interesting dilemma. Does he persue his appeal or not?
The advantage of persuing the appeal is that if he wins, he saves a quarter-milion in fines, is no longer a convicted felon, and most likely escapes disbarment. How important this is to this 56-year-old is anyone's guess. His public reputation is already shot, and his connections will ensure he gets a cushy private sector job.
If Libby appeals and loses, it is an endorsement of the trial verdict and he's out a few more bucks.
If he appeals and wins, he gets a new trial. It's quite likely that the trial won't take place until after January 2009. If he's convicted a second time, he once again faces prison time. While I expect Bush to give him an end-of-term pardon in any event, I'm not sure Libby wants to bet my freedom on it.
I find Bush's action entirely consistent with his arrogance, his loyalty to his team (if no one else) and the view that the executive branch (plus Cheney?) has absolute power. At least this time, he did not exercise extra-constitutional power nor violate any international treaties.
I won't be writing my congresscritters to call for impeachment for the commutation. Instead, for the next couple of days I'm planning to watch the Republican Candidates dance.
>Just had a horrible afterthought: can the theoretical impeachment of Dick Cheney be nullified by a presidential pardon, placing him right back in office.
The pardon power only applies to criminal or civil convictions. Does not apply to impeachment. Unless the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that it does....
Also the Federal authority to pardon does not apply to conviction in State courts. I wonder if any of the stuff this administration has been doing is a felony under the laws of any U.S. state or territory?
Flamingo @ 107
If his case were that good, he'd have been out on bail, according to the circuit court. (Actually, if it had been that good, he would have gotten off already and wouldn't have needed the commutation.)
The Supremes might let him go, but they'd have to do some tapdancing on the reason, since they just ruled that another guy's sentence was correct, in a case in which the argument was that the guidelines for sentencing were too harsh.
Chris 80: In the universe I live in, Ford WAS voted out of office in the next election. He shares with Bush the distinction of being a President who was never elected at all.
And I clearly remember that the Dems used "the pardon of Richard Nixon" as their rallying cry for that election. They rode public outrage over it into office.
30 months in a civilian prison (with visitation rights and plenty of access to your lawyers, family, and the press) after you're indicted by a grand jury, put on trial in a court where you're allowed to present a defense with (presumably expensive and very good) lawyers, and convicted by a jury on four of five counts after full due process: excessive, because "Scooter" Libby has friends.
3+ years in what may as well be an oubliette, with no charges being brought until a habeas corpus appeal is just about to go to the Supreme Court: not excessive, because Jose Padilla is an Evil Brown Person.
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Christopher 111: Yes, the term 'excessive' has certainly been used in an odd way lately. So has the term 'reasonable'.
Bob you must be a Republican and probably under the age of 16 because you have no clue about these things you talk about.
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Bob's posted the exact same comment twice, once at #64 and again at #115, six hours apart. I mean exact, right down to the non-standard capitalization and punctuation.
I wouldn't be surprised if he's just visiting all the blogs he can find that are complaining about the Libby commutation and pasting the same text in.
What really gets me is Bush highlighting in his statement that clemency is a power granted to the President by the Constitution. (here)
As though anyone still thought the Constitution had any meaning to that crew? Isn't that just an extra flip of the bird to the rest of us?
That sound bite hasn't been getting as much airplay today, but I kept hearing it last night.
Amerika's Ceaucescu and his wife: the Schmuck and Cheney.
Tomorrow is July 4, are there going to be any burnings in effigy of poppets of Schmuck and Cheney and Gonzales and Alito and Scalia in front of e.g. Fanueil Hall as the Declaration of Independence gets read, and/or hung in effigy from Liberty Trees, after tarring and feathering?
George Bush we're poor
We weren't always poor
George Bush each day
We hate your much more
We want our rights
That you took away
We want you [censored] TODAY
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