How Scooter Skated
Why did Bush do it? Why did he suddenly barge into the legal process and erase the entire 30-month sentence of Scooter Libby?
For, from his own statement, Bush found the act deeply distasteful.
In that statement, Bush calls Libby's crimes "serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice." He praises Patrick Fitzgerald as "a highly qualified professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged."
Bush indicated no disagreement with the verdict.
"[A] jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. . . . our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable."
"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush added.
Bush went on to detail the punishments that will stand.
"My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. . . . The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."
This reads like the preamble to Judge Reggie Walton's imposition of the two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. Yet, this is contained in Bush's explanation for wiping out Libby's entire sentence. It is mystifying.
Why did Bush do it? Why did he intervene at all? Why now? Why not let Scooter go to jail and commute the sentence at Christmas, if he thought it excessive?
The suddenness of Bush's action is easiest explained. Hours before he tossed his commutation statement to the press, the court had turned down Libby's last request that he be allowed to stay out of prison as his appeal is heard. Bush's need to act was obvious. Scooter was on his way to prison.
But why did Bush rush to spare him even one day behind bars?
Three explanations come to mind.
The first is that Bush capitulated to intense pressure from the neoconservative commentariat led by The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard.
To these folks, Scooter is no felon. Scooter is a hero. In the neocon network, Scooter was the pivot man in the veep's office moving the cherry-picked intel on Saddam's WMD, Saddam's nukes, Saddam's ties to 9/11 and al Qaeda to a collaborationist press as determined as he was to smash Iraq and Iran, secure Israel and control the Middle East.
So what if Scooter lied to cover up the White House campaign to carve up Joe Wilson? If Scooter did it, good Straussian that he is, he did it for the highest of motives in the noblest of causes.
To the neocons, Scooter is, in Ahmed Chalabi's phrase, "a hero in error," one of the boys. And as they saved him from the slammer, they will not stop until they secure him a pardon—to which Bush has now opened the door.
The second explanation is that Vice President Cheney went to Bush, closed the door, and asked, as a personal favor, that he spare Cheney's faithful friend and loyal aide the disgrace and pain of prison. And Bush did this distasteful and shameful act at the behest of a vice president to whom he feels an immense debt.
The third explanation is that Cheney, and perhaps the president, fears that if Scooter goes to prison, and is staring at disgrace and 30 months away from friends and family, he may think he has been abandoned by people whose secrets he kept at the cost of reputation and freedom. An idle mind being the devil's workshop, Scooter might sit down and write a book, or phone "Bulldog" Fitzgerald and tell him he just remembered something.
Whatever the motives of President Bush, this was a radical not a conservative act. Whoever pressured Bush to wipe out Scooter's sentence was more a friend of Scooter than a friend of Bush. For the president has damaged his reputation as a just ruler, so Scooter could elude what other men have to face.
Will the student deferments for these fellows never end?
The act reeks of cronyism. The perception is that Scooter Libby got preferential treatment, a get-out-of-jail-free card because he was chief of staff to Cheney and assistant to Bush.
That perception is correct.
Because of whom he knew, Scooter got preferential treatment, big-time. The Godfather took care of the consigliere.
Nothing new. After all, one recalls that the attorney who rustled up a pardon for Marc Rich from Bill Clinton was also a Beltway hustler by the name of Scooter Libby. The insiders take care of their own.
And that is how the game is played in the big city.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
How could Bush damage "his reputation as a just leader" which he never had?
I always read Pat at a tactical palace intrigue level and he just shot buckshot into Fred the Populist Outsider, you know, that actor who headed up the Scooter Libby defense fund...hey, I wonder why Fred didn't announce on July 4th as rumored?
Poor Bush ... "he" vs. "them"...
Sure, there is no cabal of which he is an integral part.
There are no actual powers for who he merely administers the realm. He is simply an honest individual, who has been honestly elected in an honest process called elections, by the people, for the people, of the people.
"... Bush found the act deeply distasteful ..."
"... Bush capitulated to intense pressure from the neoconservative commentariat ..."
"... Vice President Cheney went to Bush, closed the door, and asked, as a personal favor, that he spare Cheney’s faithful friend and loyal aide the disgrace and pain of prison ..."
"... fears that if Scooter goes to prison ... he may think he has been abandoned by people whose secrets he kept at the cost of reputation and freedom ..."
"... Whoever pressured Bush ..."
If Mr. Buchanan writes this drivel for the benefit of any grown ups too, he must be having in mind an audience of total morons.
Why is this published in Chronicles?
E.A. at Number 3
Perhaps Mr. Buchanan is writing primarily to a Republican audience and is therefore drowning his kitten(s) in the warmest possible milk!
E.A.: young man, you have missed the obvious extreme sarcasm in my post. Before you rush to dispensing more of your loose epithets, kindly re-read it.
Of course I agreed with what you and the others had said about the article! Buchanan writes so politically correctly that it is nauseating.
(Do I really have to explain this?...)
Incidentally, I frequently watch Buchanan on MSNBS and McLaughlin group, and see the same meandering, some statements highly perceptive, some defying common sense. He seems to wish to please a wide audience. I don't know how "successful" he is in it, though certainly not enough to get elected... But he surely is careful to stay within the parameters set by the establishment.
Cheers.
Correction: that was "MSNBC", not "MSNBS" ...
Hi E.A.,
"... p.s. oh gosh i’m old…… i’m almost young again! ..."
Et tu, Brute?
...
After all, it does not matter if we "get" it: the question is whether the indigenous
http://www.valbrembanaweb.it/valbrembanaweb/gallery/valnegra/pecore.jpg
will ever do...
Of course Pat watches his p's and q's, but he does not compromise principle. He is usually more perceptive than his critics either left or right. Chronicles uses Pat because of his celebrity. If you're going to cry 'hypocrisy', look inwardly. Truth is, we need both Chronicles and Pat (and TAC) to remain as they are because they serve different roles.
Nomen:
Don't hold your breath on the sheeple ever "getting it". They're too busy looking around for their next meal, their next drink or their next screw. Unless their televisions are turned on, in which case they're too busy laughing at the latest antics of Miss Paris, Miss Lindsay or whichever mercenary athlete has a paternity suit filed this week.
Please bear in mind, sir (if I may dare to presume you are a "sir"), that thanks to general ignorance, widespread stupidity (the two are NOT the same) and excessive mediatization, the American commonoriate has become a technopeasantry. The Lords Political farm them for taxes and cannon fodder, and the Lords Corporate farm them for "consumption".
For all his talent and political savvy, Mr. Buchanan cannot, by himself, overturn an ossified and insensate political/economic "culture". Nothing can. What he---and we, by extension---can do is to keep reminding those that can listen and comprehend of the essentials. That, and wait until the entire corrupt (and corrupting) edifice comes tumbling down.
And why did Bush pardon Scooter ? Why does ANY member of an elite do a favor for his/her/its friends ? Because he can---it's what they do.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
Lord Karth:
I thank Thy Lordship. How dost Thou? I verily am Sir Nomen...
You are certainly right: not "holding one's breath" is unfortunately justified. Hence the feeling of wishing to "jump out of one's skin"...
Apropos of "... and wait until ...":
Ezra Pound once said (I quote from memory) that "Slave is the one who waits for others to rescue him".
No thinking man can serenely wait for "quantity to transform into quality" (to quote from the opposite aisle) by itself, for some magic to be done for him by "others" (!), be it even a promise of history (I am not deriding history itself). And certainly not wait for our dear parochial (pun intended) Mr. Buchanan... (oh, c'mon!)
What you say concerning the indigenous technopeasantry and Lord farming techniques is more than true.
N.N.
===========================================================
E' meglio vivere un giorno da leone, che cento anni da pecora.
-- un proverbio italiano
[It is better to live one day as a lion, than hundred years as a sheep.]