Bush commutes Scooter's prison termFollow

Totem said




Is he the same Marc Rich whose lawyer in the '80s and 90's was ......wait for it





















Scooter Libby??

I'm afraid that even tho I think Totem needs to smoke more pot, he does have a point here......

I'm just wondering why you thought it was relevent to this thread. You seem hellbent on changing the subject from Bush's commuting of Libby's sentence to some hysterical screed about Clinton.

Edited, Jul 5th 2007 1:44am by Jophiel

I don't really care that Bush did it. Everyone expected it and no one was surprised. Actually, it's just one more thing to make the Pubbies look like shit for the election. You keep bring up that Marc Rich thing over and over and over and over again though. That'll win you a lot of traction.Channeling Gbaji now, are we? You should follow that up with "You know better than that!"

Well, I guess if I have to pick a side to be on, it may as well be the one with chapter and verse on his side rather than the side with random guesses about what the law should say and Clinton-crying as my only defense.

Actually, paulsol, my views on the Scooter Libby incident are that he, as well as others, were in the wrong-- just as it was wrong for a diplomat, who serves at the will of the president, to publically make his opinion known, which resulted in his CIA wife being outted. Neither side is innocent in this whole fiasco.

However, I much prefer to lampoon the libs who hang around here for their never-failing-to-disappoint rush to smack Bush down for anything and everything they view as more evidence of his corruption. Meanwhile they conveniently ignore that the previous tenent of the Oval Office was a far more vile and underhanded politician who destroyed a country's faith in the office than the present occupant. Moreover, it is quite possible that he may be given yet aother opportunity to wreak more damage upon the institution through the election of his wife.

And it is this prospect that Jophiel, bhodi, et al continue to purposefully ignore. I suspect he and others are quietly relishing that scenario while downplaying or poo-pooing the relevance to this and any other discussion concerning the United States' standing, both domestically and internationally. You can see it in the post that precedes this one. Jophiel talks about a lack of traction as if the return of Clinton to office has no bearing on the situation today, ignoring it was under his watch that we arrived where we are in Iraq.

Comically, while he claims that gbaji & I have no proper perspective on this administration, it is his very inability to do the same that sinks any argument he makes. And don't get me wrong-- he cuts and pastes with the best of them, happily Googling responses, but you'll notice he very rarely takes a stand on any issue, prefering to play devil's advocate to anybody with an opinion.

And that's the difference between us at its' core- for all his myriad 30,000+ posts, it is safer for him to parse other's posts while never committing to an opinion. It is what makes him laughable despite all his abilty to snow you with cites, references, and studies. After all, he sets himself up to be refuted if he were to actually take a stand on something, wouldn't he?

Ask me my opinion and I'll give it to you-- hopefully with a modicum of humor that keeps you coming back to read my posts. You may not agree with me, but you'll know what I believe. Jophiel? You'll just know what he doesn't believe. And there is a world's difference between the two.

Totem

No, I do not believe the Bush administration is staunchly conservative. While he may be on some issues, over time Dubya has proven himself to me to be both a pragmatist and an equal opportunity doer of the expedient.

Bush has done some things well and with other things he has failed miserably. Take Iraq, for example. His initial goal to change the status quo in the Middle East was well founded. While many were content with the way things were, nothing was being accomplished, both by us and the nations over there. Our country's grand strategy for decades was to simply put off till tomorrow what needed fixing yesterday. Islam was a festering sore that was going to have to be dealt with eventually, Iran, Syria, and Iraq would continue to cause trouble. Etc, etc. Bush changed all that.

While the present circumstances may not be pretty, no solution was going to be clean. Think of it as a remodel in progress-- lots of dust, lots of breaking of old structures, both physical and political, and laboring over the blueprints. Still, these things need to be addressed. However, his implementation of these changes have been horrendous. But it's what we have because other than Bush Sr., nobody has been willing to deal directly with the problems the Middle East continues to produce.

In truth, I often wonder why any president ever bothers to run for a second term. Invariably it is between his 5th and 8th year that things become unraveled, scandals boil over, and lingering resentments come back to haunt them. Take any of our last three two term presidents-- had any of them stopped at the end of their first go-around, they'd be universally lauded as statesmen, diplomatic geniuses, etc. As it stands each one got slowly dragged down by the detrius of too many years in office.

/shrugs

I guess that's the way of the world.

Totem

Clinton left office with outstanding job approval ratings, well over partisan lines and the highest ratings since Theodore Roosevelt. The current tenant in the White House would do well to have half of Clinton's support. But I suppose we can make up nebulous and unprovable metrics for "destroyed a country's faith" and simply insist over and over again that it must be true. Would you like to do that?Well, if you want to talk about the effect of the Plame case and Libby upon the nation's standing, we could do that. I'm sure that seeing Bush let off his VP's right hand man did wonders to make Bush seem fair.I took a stand. The Libby sentence was fair and justified. I can only assume you failed to read any of the posts you ******* about or that you aren't able to comprehend.

Edited, Jul 5th 2007 8:20am by Jophiel

Bhodi,
Considering your prediliction for ****, being hard on Bush is the only being hard on bush that's gonna happen. You know it, we know it, so stop with the double entendres and just ask Sabaruto out for a date once and for all.

Totem

You had me at liction.

You'd best stick with name calling and leave the real conversations for people that can formulate an actual argument, k big guy?

Edited, Jul 5th 2007 10:46am by bodhisattva

Two grand juries agreed that "I just remembered it different" wasn't a valid defense against the evidence presented.

So, while I suppose "remembering it differently" might not be a crime, perjury still is and perjury is what Libby was found guilty of, not "remebering it different".

Shouldn't you be lying about your mighty corn crop?

Funny little story (well, funny to me) -- I was going to lunch today and listening to my usual ten minutes of Limbaugh when he was talking about some Democratic strategy guy. Said guy claimed that the Democrats needed to use more emotion and less fact & figures in order to appeal to the voters (presumably on the assumption that Republicans appealed largely by means of jingoism and all that).

Rush started going off about how all the Democrats had were appeals to emotion and that they hid all the facts and figures because they didn't want anyone to know the truth. I immediately contrasted that to Totem's little rant about how he uses emotion but I only use facts and that's why he was better and started laughing.

I guess Totem will be happy to know that the Democratic strategy guy agrees with him even if Rush doesn't.

LIES!!