Bush 1 Clinton 140

It didn't take long. The viral e-mail full of misinformation and twisted logic hit my mailbox early in the morning on the 4th of July, a day already filled with flags, fake history and fulsome braggadocio. The ritualized sneering, the evocation of some sneerworthy but irrelevant straw man like Hillary or Jane or Bill; the non-sequiturs, the ad hominem attacks. . . it's like a thousand others.

It's titled Bush one Vs. Clinton 140 and it begins:

As Shrillery Clinton condemns G.W. Bush for commuting Scooter Libby's prison sentence, I felt compelled to compile a short list of the pardons and commutations hat [sic] her wife, Bill Clinton, did in his last years and days as President of this country. This woman has more nerve than I can imagine in her condemnation of President Bush. Perhaps if Scooter Libby was accused or convicted of domestic bombings, sexual assault, bank fraud, solicitation of child pornography, tax evasion or cocaine traffficking, [sic] such as her family friends listed below are, Shrillery would be in favor of a pardon.

Of course this opening gambit is to make you think that the nationwide outrage is something Mrs. Clinton invented. I won't address the ritual name calling or allegations of gender ambiguity; it's just typical Republican sleaze, signifying nothing. Of course no one will bother to critically look at each and every case of presidential pardon,
either from Clinton or his predecessors but even so, the statement evades two important points, the first of which is that one's misdeeds are not excused by misleadingly similar misdeeds of others. The second is that pardoning someone who has served a sentence is not the same as removing the sentence of someone who has served no time while your friends pay his expenses and fines.

Libby was not, of course pardoned, he was simply excused from having to go to jail because, as the decider decided, the sentence which fell well within the guidelines for everyone else, was too severe. Since he reduced it to nothing, he must have felt that any sentence was too severe. This of course from a man and a party who have championed mandatory and severe sentences. The outrage of most of the public has more to do with the obvious cronyism and the additional increment of obstruction of justice that is this unashamed reward for loyalty. As laughable as it may be, the only way for them to deal with the flimsiness of this farce is to counterattack. -- and so they do.

No mention of course is made about Reagan's pardons or Bush the Elder's equally self serving gifts to those who broke the law in the furthering and covering up of presidential crimes and while none of that is relevant, it makes the reference to Mrs. Clinton's "nerve" a bit funny in a nauseating sort of way.

Somehow, all this faux outrage and haughty bravado reminds me of some images I saw of the last days of Nicolae Ceauşescu, standing before a vast crowd he thought was there to praise him once again. He seemed stunned and incredulous that they were booing and jeering and yet he never stopped waving and acting as though he was the beloved patriarch; as though he were in control. Three days later he was put against a wall.

The nerve of an administration that may have the respect of perhaps 20% of the American public acting as though it was merely dealing with some insignificant and helpless minority while the nation counts the minutes until we are rid of them.

I remember another image; some words scrawled on a wall in Beijing after the massacre had been cleaned up and swept under the rug: "all this must be accounted for."

(cross posted at The Reaction)

Jolly Roger

I won't be hanging an American Flag from my front porch tomorrow. I won't be listening to songs of praise for America on TV. I will ignore as much of the patriotic drivel as I can and I'm sure as hell am not going to pledge allegiance to that grimy and blood stained flag I'm supposed to worship like a religious relic.

Do I have to explain why? Our proud ship of state,as Lyndon Johnson used to be fond of calling it, is now a rusted hulk infested with pirates and rats. Its cargo has been sold off, its passengers robbed and locked up - all except for one.

I was listening to Air America in the car today and there as everywhere, the talk was of the commutation. Professional traitors like Fred Thompson are proud of Libby and think he's done a lot for the country, others wonder what Martha Stewart is thinking. I'm wondering what Record producer Weldon Angelos is thinking as he serves a 55 year sentence for selling three little bags of weed to an undercover cop. He didn't get 55 years because he had some crazed hanging judge, but because "conservatives" as fascists call themselves in America, like mandatory and draconian sentences. Even the sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, an appointee of President Bush, called the sentence "unjust, cruel and irrational." He is right. Hijack a plane, rape a child, embezzle a hundred million bucks and you'll get a shorter sentence. But so Republican is the Supreme court, they upheld the sentence.

Severe sentences are the nectar and ambrosia of the Republicans. They breathe heavily at the thought of locking someone in a box forever, they love torture, they love executions of the retarded, the insane and the underage - but they don't love those mandatory sentences when it happens to one of them. They do a lot for our country as Republicans and that makes up for any felony.

Swashbuckling George wouldn't commute Angelos' sentence, but Scooter? All Scooter did was to help cover up a felony that could have resulted in the impeachment of the Vice President. It's ridiculous to talk of a double standard when there is no standard. It's ridiculous to talk about the rule of law when the law changes to suit the whim of the leader.

Libby won't pay that fine or the million bucks or so his lawyers charged him - that's taken care of by a Republican group headed by Fred (just like Reagan) Thompson. Before long he'll have a nice book deal and a certain pardon. Angelos will spend his life in a cell.


The hell with the flag and the parades and the marching and speeches about the troops. Hang out the pirate flag, call your congressmen and call them again. Tell them you support impeachment and impeachment right now. Tomorrow may be too late.

Impeachment now

" Please," Bush whimpered, his face contorted in mocking the desperation of Karla Faye Tucker's, plea for commutation "don't kill me." Perhaps his higher father was out back smoking a cigarette and missed his regular consultation with George Bush, but Christian George had no intention of exercising the slightest trace of compassion or mercy. The State of Texas went ahead and killed her as it does so very often despite major concerns about due process, the quality of the defense or the quality of the evidence. Not only does bush not care, he thinks it's funny.

It's not funny of course when one of his made men faces a prison sentence for helping to cover up an impeachable offense by anyone in the Executive or Cheney branches of government. The man who made such a fuss about judges sticking to strict sentencing guidelines, feels that under the circumstances, the strict sentencing guidelines adhered to by a strictly non-activist Republican judge were excessive.

Of course nearly 80% of the people who responded to the CNN poll as of this morning, feel Bush is wrong to have let Scooter scoot, but as we know, the 20% who support him in this and other atrocities would do so if he sprouted horns and hooves.

What can I add to this that hasn't been reported, analyzed, blogged and bloviated to death? There's only one thing left to be said; only one course of action left to a nation under attack by domestic enemies. Impeachment now while there's still time.

Screw Circosta, pardon Libby

It's not just that Mitt Romney is another polished, glib and slippery salesman who thinks he can slither into the Presidency by virtue of good looks and a few slogans; it's that he's a truly reprehensible human being. Mitt, whose name provokes an irresistible rhyming response to those fond of bestowing nicknames, brags about never pardoning anyone for any reason. He doesn't like to overturn a jury decision, says he. It looks though, that ingratiating himself with the criminal junta that runs America has finally provided a reason for him to trot out the sophistry and vouchsafe his willingness to consider pardoning Scooter Libby. He's a victim of entrapment and the prosecutor knew he was not guilty of a crime, said the lugubrious Mr. Romney to CNN today, knowing full well that perjury and obstruction of justice are independent of the crime of exposing a secret agent and the accusation of entrapment does not fit here at all. Only a man like Mitt could pound a square lie into a round hole with so little noise and it makes you wonder about the nature of the "faith" he likes to talk about. Perhaps it does better at lubricating a lie than at mandating any kind of morality.

Mitt doesn't give a shit about morality or justice anyway, no matter how many bibles he gnaws on before breakfast or how much spray he uses in his hair. Ask Anthony Circosta, the fellow with a juvenile record of shooting a friend with a BB gun when he was 13. I admit I've been hit at least a dozen times as a kid playing "Army" with my friends. It stings but won't penetrate clothing or break the skin. Paintball guns will sting worse on bare skin and shooting at your friends with one is a very popular sport, but never mind that Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard and is decorated Iraq war veteran, having led a platoon of 20 through the Sunni triangle. He now needs a pardon, amazingly enough, so that he can become a policeman, but Romney refused the request twice, despite the state Board of Pardons' recommendations. Perhaps he was too busy with his unfathomable faith to consider mercy, decency, justice or even the facts.

This evening on CNN, we heard on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room that because of a juvenile firearms violation of a boy, the man, the battle tested soldier could not ever again be pardoned or trusted with a firearm. Perhaps neither Mitt the Shit nor Wolf Blitzer should be trusted with the English language, any kind of logic, or any position of public trust requiring either of those, because a BB gun is worked by a spring and is not a firearm. No matter what the twittering hoplophobes in Massachusetts might think or how much Romney's hypocrisy may stink, it's not a firearm, not a firearm, not a firearm.

Special pleading

William Otis writing in Sunday's Washington Post suggests that Scooter Libby's sentence of 30 months and $250,000 is excessive and should be commuted. It's only a "process crime" says he, meaning that Libby did nothing illegal until after the government initiated its investigation. That's the nature of Perjury.

Otis is a former federal prosecutor and member of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee on Sentencing Guidelines and special counsel for the first President Bush, so I have at least give the man some credit for not talking off the top of his head, but how this recommendation will fly in a country obsessed with "zero tolerance" and trying children as adults and giving draconian sentences for minor and consensual crimes, I do not know. I do however recall the protracted, expensive and divisive effort to prosecute Bill Clinton for lying about something irrelevant to anything he was being tried for. The acts concerning which Libby committed perjury had nothing to do with sex and Otis points out that they were non-violent and not "drug related." In addition he thought he was serving his country by putting loyalty to the Bush administration above loyalty to the people and constitution of the United States. The crowning argument for commutation is that Sandy Berger, a Democrat, only got a fine for copying classified documents.

I'm not a lawyer or a Republican, so I'm a bit confused as to why 10 years for having too much marijuana is not excessive or 50, 60 or 70 years for pornography possession is not excessive when 30 months for perjury is too much. Holding government officials to a higher standard wasn't considered so terrible during the 1990's, was it? He's not what most people would think of as a criminal, says Mr. Otis, but I disagree. Our jails are filled with non-violent people who have harmed no-one. I submit that Libby supported people who have harmed the world and when Otis says that

"A partial commutation would send the message that we insist on being truthful, but in the name of a justice that still cares about individual circumstances, we will not insist on being vindictive"

I would believe him if it weren't that our mandatory sentencing policies in the US are designed not to take into account individual circumstances and vindictiveness rules to the point of killing people. About this he says nothing.

And lastly, citing an anecdote about Sandy Berger as evidence for political bias in sentencing serves as well to point out that Otis once again says nothing about the legendary capriciousness of criminal courts in handing down sentences that reflect prejudice and thirst for vengeance. His plea is not for universal and consistent justice, but to diminish Libby's offenses.

Otis may be a lawyer and thus used to pleading a case rather than arguing it logically, but if it were up to me, I would Lock up Libby and sentence Otis to being ignored.

Cross posted in The Reaction