Bush commutes Scooter's prison termFollow

"My view? Clinton's a little hypocritical to admonish Bush publicly for the pardons, but what else would he have said, really? But he did pardon a lot of people who had no ties to him and a majority or all of which (to my knowledge, feel free to catch me on this) had at least spent some time." --Sopio

A "little" hypocritical? How about a whole lot of hypocritical? As for what Clinton should have said was nothing. But if he just absolutely had to say something lest his head explode or he turned into a gigantic purple phallus on national television, then a "It's the president's perogative to pardon whom he wishes to pardon," and left it at that.

Anything else is ludicrious in the extreme.

Totem

As ethically seedy as Bush/Clinton's actions are/were, they were within the legal powers of the office. In the end they were both as slimy, no one ups man ship of "Clinton calling out Bush for this makes him a hypocrite" will work because it can be parried with a 'Bush promised to sack anyone who was linked to Plame outing'.

In the end issues such as this are almost not worth noting when the very foundation stones which your country is based upon are being desecrated. You want to talk who the biggest hypocrite is when Habeas Corpus and Due Process are being raped in the ***?



Edited, Jul 8th 2007 1:11am by bodhisattva

My view? Clinton's a little hypocritical to admonish Bush publicly for the pardons, but what else would he have said, really?

So just to sum up: Promising not to do something, then doing it, completely fine. Criticizing someone for doing something they repeatedly stated was wrong, hypocritical if you've done something similar. Go go echo chamber.

I cheat on my wife, you say it's wrong. You later cheat on your wife, I say it's wrong, I'm the hypocrite. Roger.

I often wonder why you guys don't just make up elaborate fairy tales instead. It'd be equally plausible and far far more interesting. "Well Clinton built a house out of ginger bread and candy and then gave birth to children with candy cane limbs who he ate immediately!" See what I'm saying?

This thread would be way more entertaining if it was about Bush commuting to prison on a scooter!

Let me step in here for a moment.



No. Totem is absolutely right. The correct answer from a former president when asked to comment on a commuted/pardoned sentences is "It is a presidents perogative when and how to excerisize his constituational power in this area". Period. Arguably, that's the same answer a former president should be giving on *any* decision made by the current president. In fact, up until very recently *cough*Carter*cough* former presidents kept themselves outside of the political arena. The Dems have chosen to throw that convention out the window. I think it was a bad choice, but they apparently are more interested in scoring cheap political points then showing any sort of class.

It's not, nor it should be about "sides". All presidents have this power. All presidents use it. For a former president to criticize on this issue show an amazing lack of class or respect for the office itself (which you'd think he would have).



To be fair though, there are differences. Clinton's pardon was "new" in that it *wasn't* about politics. It wasn't a questionable case. It wasn't someone who got caught up in a political turf war (like Libby arguably was). It was someone who stole money. Lots and lots of money. Then donated money to the Dem party. He bought his pardon. That's why people criticized it. It basically said "Presidential pardons are for sale".

However, I will point out that while many Republicans did criticize Clinton for this act, I don't recall any "official" reaction occuring. There certainly were no calls for impeachment (not that it mattered anyway), or Censure (which could have been done just to get it on record since that's all a Censure is), nor talk of criminal charges against the former president when he leaves office. Nor was there talk about ammending the Constitution to prevent such acts either. Republicans simply observered the particularly horrible nature of that pardon and moved on. Certainly, no one brought up the Rich pardon as part of the Kerry election campaign in some sort of "This is what Dems do!!!" argument. Yet that's exactly what our "moderate", meh-stating Jophiel seemed ok with doing. Makes you wonder, if he's moderate, how "out there" are the extremists...?




Sure. ;)


I think the real point being missed here is that all presidents have this power. All presidents have used this power. There's simply no percentage in making this big of a deal about the use of the power. As Totem points out in his own round about way, it's a bad idea to throw stones when you live in a glass house...

Found this tidbit as well!More on Specter and the "Mondale Amendment"

Poor Gbaji. You honestly have no idea what your party does, do you? You just dance along, assuming that they're so good and those liberals are all so bad...

Edited, Jul 9th 2007 9:57pm by Jophiel

Really? You probably should have checked before you got all self rightous and looked like a dipshit and, in the future, you might want to hold off on using words like "certainly" when the only thing that's "certain" is that you don't know what in the fuck you're talking about.

Of course, why would you? Like I said, you're just a tool for the Pubbies. Why would it occur to you to look into your claims that the Republicans just brushed off the Marc Rich thing before you started going off on how evil the Democrats are?Ah, a final, feeble attempt to spin. "Sure the Republican held hearings into the Clinton pardon and hinted at criminal action and floated a Constitutional amendment but... I didn't remember all of this so it must be the liberal media's fault!!"

God, you're pathetic.

Edited, Jul 9th 2007 10:04pm by Jophiel

Gbaji time!



Can't trust this!



Can't trust this!



Can't trust this!



Break it down!

CITE?!? (you make this stuff up dontcha?)

http://www.thismodernworld.com/media/rar/Brill.jpg

Was the point to frantically try to spin the Republicans actions as liberal media bias? Because that's what I got from your post.

So, these Republicans who are completely ignorant of their parties actions, declare that "certainly" their party doesn't engage in such-and-such activities and that's why they're so much better than the Democrats, and who are so brain-washed that it never occurs to them to check their facts and then continually try to blame it all on the liberals when they are proven to be dead wrong... do they represent the "moderates" in your party?

Because I'm kind of scared to think of how fucked up the extremists must be.