Bush commutes Scooter's prison termFollow

No. They don't. Not a one mentions that angle of the issue. You're also missing the point that the Probation Officer (who presumably is the "expert" on this issue) did *not* believe that Libby's sentence should fall under this special case. Fitzgerald disagreed and the judge agreed with Fitzgerald. This is hardly a standard finding though. Basically two men decided what Libby's setence should be, in violation of the standard and the suggestion of the one person in that court who's job it is to make that determination.

We can speculate as to why Fitzgerald choose to do this, and why the judge agreed to go along with it, but that does not mean that they are automatically "right" for having done so.


I think you'd be incredibly hard-pressed to find *any* example of a person who committed a perjury unrelated to the investigation at hand being sentenced in this manner. It would be like if a witness in a murder investigation lied about where he was at the time of the murder because he didn't want to admit he was having an affair with the boss's wife, so the prosecutor decides to charge him with perjury and obstruction and then setences him to 30 years because the underlying case was a murder.


Equally absurd. Libby's perjury had absolutely no impact on Fitzgerald's ability to pursue the case at hand. He was not in any way covering up, or attempting to protect the person who committed the crime that was being investigated. In any sane case the idea that his sentence should be somehow conntected to the crime that was being investigated would not even enter anyone's head. Only in a high profile political case would something like this happen.


Which is exactly why the sentence was commuted. Libby got an unfair ride on this, not because of the severity of what he did, but because of the political ramifications and "heat" of the case at hand. I would assume that in any other case, you'd be defending a citizens right to have a fair trial unencumbered by the hype of the moment. Oddly, in this case alone, you feel differently.


Why am I not surprised?

So lemme see here. Some of you are upset that a sitting president exercised his executive powers and commuted a man's sentence. Well, how about that! Bush did what every other sitting president has done, only less so. In fact, he has shown tremendous restraint in exercising his presidential powers when it comes to commuting sentences and giving out pardons.

But please, don't let mere executive precedent and tradition stop you from your regularly scheduled Bush bashing. I, for one, am grateful for the compassion and mercy the holders of our nation's highest office have shown to us common folk.

Sin,
Mark Rich




Totem

/woooosh

Yes, that was the sound of stinging satire winging its way merrily over your head, paulsol.

Totem

Just to be clear here, you do know who Mark Rich is, don't you? Politicizing the pardoning process is generally accepted as having started with the illustrious Sperm Donater-in-Chief. That is, of course, unless you happen to be a FoB or your typical Asylum poster. No matter; it is what it is. And try as they might, by saying Republicans are always foolishly looking back to the Clinton presidency for wrong doing, the spectre of Clinton II, The ***** is Back! raises every issue that plagued that administration. After all, ol' Slick Willy himself said that with his presidency you got two (Count 'em! Two!) presidents for the price of one. Now we are faced with that same prospect again, only with his wife holding the reins-- and his balls.

In the past a sitting president will normally sign off on many, if not all, of the nominees that the Justice Department has put forward for clemancy or pardons. He himself is not involved very closely with the process, but takes the advice of the lawyers and bureaucrats who are familiar with those cases. Bill Clinton turned that on its head by granting forebearances to criminal contributors to the Democratic Party.

And interestingly, I don't recall hearing much outcry and gnashing of teeth on this board back when he did it. Funny how that works, huh?

Totem

Gbaji is verbose. Me? I'm just comfortable handling words with more than two syllables, Corky.

As for your assertion that hypocrisy is the salient issue is precisely my point. The only hypocrisy that is in play here is yours. You accuse the Bush administration of some nefarious wrong doing, yet blindly accept Clintonian misdeeds. Don't try to play this off as yesteryear fingerpointing. It's a real possibility that that same crowd will occupy the White House for a third term-- yes, that same administration that pardoned Mark Rich.

So you tell me-- who is the one who is being hypocritical? I can confidently say that you did not once speak up about the blatent bakeesh politics of Rich's pardon (assuming you were even here back then). Nor did anyone else except for those of us who loathed Clinton. As long as your boy was in office, anything and everything was acceptable and allowable. After all, he was your boy, right? And his wrong doing was supposedly just mere sexual adventures, nothing serious like Iraq, right?

Way to equivocate. Thanks for punching yourself in the balls, bhodi. You saved me the effort.

Totem

Here's a primer on eye-popping presidential pardons:

The 10 Most Notorious Presidential Pardons

The pic of Rich makes him look like Robin Leach of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" appropriately enough...

Totem

You hear that, Bhodi? You're a hypocrite for not having posted on the uBB boards back seven years ago when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich.

You *******!

Edited, Jul 4th 2007 10:22am by Jophiel

I forgot that Steinnbrenner? and Patty Hearst were pardoned, interesting read.

No one argued that. In fact the general tone has been a chuckle and "Boy, didn't see that one coming..."

And, in case we did miss it, we always have the usual suspects to pout, stamp their feet and huff "Clinton! Clinton! Clinton!" over and over

Caspar Weinbarger. what a crock of **** that was.

Yeah, because when Bush senior pardoned Caspar Weinberger and five other convicted or indicted Iran-contragate cronies on christmas ever 1992 it was jut a Christmas present, it had nothing to do with politics.


Edited, Jul 4th 2007 5:23pm by Deathwysh

"I challenge you to point out at any time in this thread where I either attacked Bush for commuting Libby's sentence or somehow tried to defend Clinton. Feel free to quote me.

No? So it is just another well written post that makes another sh'it argument?

/golfclap" --bhodiarrhea

Heh, like your record on Bush bashing isn't well documented, regardless of your particular track record in this thread-- unless you are willing to assert you have expressed no denigrating opinions on our president on this board. Parse much, hypocrite?

Totem

How come you think that because someone is bashing Bush for being an illiterate, dihonest low-down scum-bag, that that immediatly means that they are supporters of Clinton?

It might be true for lots of people around the place, but quoting Clintons shortcomings in defence of Bushes idiocy only confirms to the rest of us that politics in the USA is perpetuated by people like yourself who only vote for 'this' guy, because he doesn't like the 'other' guy. the politacal campaigns all over the world are turning into those **** fights you have in the US, where its all about slagging off the other guy, rather than campaigning on what is good about 'yourself'. me no understandee..



Your right. They should have spent $48 million on your own underpriveliged and sick folk.. Just like Bush should be spending this money on your homeless and sick, rather than someone elses. But as you no doubt will agree, hes only spending the money where he is spending it because he cares about the downtrodden masses. What a great guy!



Again good call.
And again. Why isnt Bush spending your tax dollars on the education of your children, rather than running up humongous debts (to China FFS)that will have to be paid by those self same children 20 or 30 years from now, in the mindless pursuit of an 'enemy' that cant even set light to a provincial airport with getting smacked up the head by a bunch of local Scottish old ladies. "Threat to our way of life', indeed!



It was fucking blow-job for cryin out loud!! The fixation you pubbies have on oral sex is fucking hilarious. Of all the ****** things Clinton did get up to, and you keep going on about the one thing he did that was actually pretty cool.


Just so as you know, I think that if Hillary Clinton does get elected then, the slope that America has started sliding down of late, will just get a little steeper.