Bush Appointed Judge Orders Libby to Report to Jail - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ratbastid · 07-03-2007, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Ironically, if the sentence had been reasonable, Bush, in my opinion, may not have taken any action.

On what basis do you assert that the sentence was unreasonable? Do you have other, similar convictions to compare it to?

Here's the thing: there ARE no similar convictions. This is a unique case. Obstructing justice (etc.) is one thing in a non-political case. It's VERY MUCH another when it involves covering political scandals that reach into the highest offices of the administration and implicate high officials in damaging national security for purposes of political revenge.

I think covering something like that up is way more serious than other sorts of lies and obfuscations, and evidently the jury felt the same way.

aceventura3 · 07-03-2007, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

On what basis do you assert that the sentence was unreasonable?

Reasonableness is subjective. Anyone who has read anything I have written on the Libby situation would know that I think the whole issue was a waste of time and resources. I don't believe he committed any crime, and I think the sentence was unreasonable.

I think Bush was trying to balance his respect for the judicial process and Libby being the victim of a political witch hunt. Having a felony record, $250,000 fine, and 2 years of probation is still significant.

tecoyah · 07-03-2007, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Reasonableness is subjective. Anyone who has read anything I have written on the Libby situation would know that I think the whole issue was a waste of time and resources. I don't believe he committed any crime, and I think the sentence was unreasonable.

I think Bush was trying to balance his respect for the judicial process and Libby being the victim of a political witch hunt. Having a felony record, $250,000 fine, and 2 years of probation is still significant.

Out of curiosity....what did you think of Clintons' punishment. Oh..thats right...you considered him guilty of justice violations, and that he got off easy. Please, explain to us all how this is a different matter,and take into consideration you comments in this very thread.

roachboy · 07-03-2007, 11:08 AM

so it appears to follow for you, ace, that anything a republican administration does is huny dory, while the reverse is true for a democrat.
that has nothing to do with "reasonableness"...it is what neitzsche would have referred to as a slave mentality, that kind of cringing deference to recieved opinion the main function of which is to enable you to avoid posing questions that may be troublesome. i personally do not care what the psychological explanations might be for this servility. it doesnt interest me.

i do find the fact that this utterly servile relation to conservative talking points issues into a defense of resoluteness on the part of cowboy george: maybe this is an enabling mechanism that helps erase the fact of servility by projecting manliness onto another, so that you do not miss what you give away when you subordinate yourself to conservative ideology. projection is a fave in conservativeland. the mechanism is transparent to all but the inhabitants of conservativeland, who seem to live in a kind of truman show, except that even truman noticed eventually that something was fucked up.

i should maybe make my position on this newest bushfarce explicit: i was not surprised that he acted as he did. i am not particularly outraged about it simply because i find other, more grotesque instances of idiocy, corruption, mismanagement, incompetence more disturbing. i understand that libby acquired considerable significance both materially--what he did was serious, and the proceedings against him cannot be dismissed by a sane observer as a "political witchhunt" (a particularly empty retro-meme)--and symbolically. the symbolic dimension is the sad part: it is an expression of political impotence. the american system is not structured that an administration as overwhelmingly incompetent as that of the bush people cannot be gotten rid of until its term has expired. voter suppression in the selection process are irrelevant. congress is paralyzed: nothing the bush people have done will be actionable, and if there is something, it will be a very difficult procedural fight to even bring it to the floor (we'll see what happens with leahey's subpoenas re. wiretapping)...and popular sentiment is of no consequence--the conservative press lauds the administration for taking no account of popular sentiment. manliness precludes it. so apparently democracy only matters when it is convenient. which is that way of the right.

the bush people continue to ride their own internal logic of obliviousness and contempt down toward the singel digits in popularity ratings, grinding the whole of the american political and legal systems into a legitimation crisis even as they claim to defend them. and it doesnt matter--not to the administration, not to those few people who continue to support the administration--together, they see nothing--it is this pathetic context that libby functions as symbol, and the bush action is also far more problematic at the symbolic level than it is at the material level (for me anyway because the only surprise in this was that bush waited as long as he did to exculpate the loyalist effectively...)

sooner or later you have to look at the worldview you inhabit, ace, and try to figure out if it actually makes sense or not.
i do not care whether you adopt another politics--mine least of all--i really dont. but i do not understand how it is at this point possible for you or anyone else to continue confusing conservatism with a rational political viewpoint. you have 6 fucking years of seeing the implications of your ideology unfolded. and there is not one--NOT ONE--area that has not been made worse for the past 6 years. that you refuse to look is what makes your posts read as servile, ace, and that servility is what makes your posts contemptable.

tecoyah · 07-03-2007, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so it appears to follow for you, ace, that anything a republican administration does is huny dory, while the reverse is true for a democrat.
that has nothing to do with "reasonableness"...it is what neitzsche would have referred to as a slave mentality, that kind of cringing deference to recieved opinion the main function of which is to enable you to avoid posing questions that may be troublesome. i personally do not care what the psychological explanations might be for this servility. it doesnt interest me.

i do find the fact that this utterly servile relation to conservative talking points issues into a defense of resoluteness on the part of cowboy george: maybe this is an enabling mechanism that helps erase the fact of servility by projecting manliness onto another, so that you do not miss what you give away when you subordinate yourself to conservative ideology. projection is a fave in conservativeland. the mechanism is transparent to all but the inhabitants of conservativeland, who seem to live in a kind of truman show, except that even truman noticed eventually that something was fucked up.

i should maybe make my position on this newest bushfarce explicit: i was not surprised that he acted as he did. i am not particularly outraged about it simply because i find other, more grotesque instances of idiocy, corruption, mismanagement, incompetence more disturbing. i understand that libby acquired considerable significance both materially--what he did was serious, and the proceedings against him cannot be dismissed by a sane observer as a "political witchhunt" (a particularly empty retro-meme)--and symbolically. the symbolic dimension is the sad part: it is an expression of political impotence. the american system is not structured that an administration as overwhelmingly incompetent as that of the bush people cannot be gotten rid of until its term has expired. voter suppression in the selection process are irrelevant. congress is paralyzed: nothing the bush people have done will be actionable, and if there is something, it will be a very difficult procedural fight to even bring it to the floor (we'll see what happens with leahey's subpoenas re. wiretapping)...and popular sentiment is of no consequence--the conservative press lauds the administration for taking no account of popular sentiment. manliness precludes it. so apparently democracy only matters when it is convenient. which is that way of the right.

the bush people continue to ride their own internal logic of obliviousness and contempt down toward the singel digits in popularity ratings, grinding the whole of the american political and legal systems into a legitimation crisis even as they claim to defend them. and it doesnt matter--not to the administration, not to those few people who continue to support the administration--together, they see nothing--it is this pathetic context that libby functions as symbol, and the bush action is also far more problematic at the symbolic level than it is at the material level (for me anyway because the only surprise in this was that bush waited as long as he did to exculpate the loyalist effectively...)

sooner or later you have to look at the worldview you inhabit, ace, and try to figure out if it actually makes sense or not.
i do not care whether you adopt another politics--mine least of all--i really dont. but i do not understand how it is at this point possible for you or anyone else to continue confusing conservatism with a rational political viewpoint. you have 6 fucking years of seeing the implications of your ideology unfolded. and there is not one--NOT ONE--area that has not been made worse for the past 6 years. that you refuse to look is what makes your posts read as servile, ace, and that servility is what makes your posts contemptable.

In a Nutshell Ace:

To ignore the obvious, makes you seem somewhat naive if not fully corrupted by ignorance. And continuing to deny such a reality,will not keep it from happening.

powerclown · 07-03-2007, 11:26 AM

Question: Why was it ok for the prosecution to set Libby up as The Symbol of the Bush Administration, when Libby had nothing to do with the original reason for the trial? If this trial was about Justice and finding and punishing whomever outed a covert CIA agent, why isn't Dick Armitage - the guy who outed Plame and started the ball rolling for a prosecution - rotting in a jail cell right this minute?

Superbelt · 07-03-2007, 11:32 AM

Why isn't Armitage rotting in a jail cell right now?
Well, it's apparently a hard to prove crime.
One made substantially harder to prove when the parties involved lie when brought before the grand jury.
One gets caught in several lies, and gets handed a 'get out of jail free' card.

ubertuber · 07-03-2007, 11:33 AM

I see the intellectual thread here, but let's not make this about Ace...

ratbastid · 07-03-2007, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Question: Why was it ok for the prosecution to set Libby up as The Symbol of the Bush Administration, when Libby had nothing to do with the original reason for the trial? If this trial was about Justice and finding and punishing whomever outed a covert CIA agent, why isn't Dick Armitage - the guy who outed Plame and started the ball rolling for a prosecution - rotting in a jail cell right this minute?

It's not the outing that's the problem. I mean... that's obviously a problem, but the MUCH bigger problem is the cover-up. THAT'S what Libby was part of. Libby might have had nothing at all to do personally with the leak, that's entirely beside the point. Libby personally acted repeatedly to withhold the truth from the investigation and the American people. That's his crime. That crime, by all federal sentencing guidelines, carries jail time. Unless, apparently, you have a friend in the White House (who may or may not have been behind your cover-up activities).

tecoyah · 07-03-2007, 11:49 AM

I personally have hesitated to use Ace as a target until recently. Unfortunately it seems he is the only conservative willing to stand by his ethical viewpoint in this current cycle of events, and is thus the only one to debate at this point. Though taking powerclown to task seems a viable alternative, he at least seems to understand the position he places himself in.
Over the next several months, we will likely see far more attention payed to those who support the Bush ethics....I suggest you all get ready for it.

powerclown · 07-03-2007, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superbelt

Well, it's apparently a hard to prove crime.

This is my point: the prosecutorial disingenuousness of abandoning Plan A for Plan H. I'm just curious why Fitzgerald couldn't get the one man Joe Wilson wanted to get from the start: Karl Rove.

Instead, he got the guy who went shopping for the groceries for the guy who served dinner to the guy that drove alongside the guy that drove the guy to the guy's house where all the guys were meeting for some supposedly shady reason.

Superbelt · 07-03-2007, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

It's not the outing that's the problem. I mean... that's obviously a problem, but the MUCH bigger problem is the cover-up. THAT'S what Libby was part of. Libby might have had nothing at all to do personally with the leak, that's entirely beside the point. Libby personally acted repeatedly to withhold the truth from the investigation and the American people. That's his crime. That crime, by all federal sentencing guidelines, carries jail time. Unless, apparently, you have a friend in the White House (who may or may not have been behind your cover-up activities).

Of course you are right that whether Libby was personally involved is not the point.
Just to be clear about it: Fact is, he was personally involved. He was Judy Miller's source. She rotted in jail for months before he released her from her confidentiality agreement. That's the whole reason she is free, because she named her source, and it was Libby.

The fact that she didn't actually RUN with the info that Plame was a covert agent with the CIA is besides the point. Libby violated national security. He committed treason against this country, by outing a covert agent in this nations employ. That he was hoping that she would help him disseminate this information to the entire world is just icing on the treason cake.

Powerclown: Read the above, that response clears up the fact that Libby was intimately involved as well. Just because his reporter wasn't completely lacking morals like Rove's is besides the point.
As to why Fitzgerald couldn't convict Rover or Armitage or even Libby for the breach of National Security. I just don't know.
Likely that everyone was lying and only Libby was stupid enough to lie about things that Fitzgerald could prove otherwise.

tecoyah · 07-03-2007, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

This is my point: the prosecutorial disingenuousness of abandoning Plan A for Plan H. I'm just curious why Fitzgerald couldn't get the one man Joe Wilson wanted to get from the start: Karl Rove.

Instead, he got the guy who went shopping for the groceries for the guy who served dinner to the guy that drove alongside the guy that drove the guy to the guy's house where all the guys were meeting for some supposedly shady reason.

Seriously....have you paid no attention at all to the actual investigation? Libby was the only individual who could possibly be questioned that "Might" have information pertinent to the crimes in question. All others were prevented by the executive branch from saying a word, and the words Libby did say were false. To this day Congress cannot get testimony from the key witnesses in this fiasco, and likely will not without SCOTUS intervention, which is unlikely considering the make up of the court.
Accepting this as legit is quite frankly a joke, if there was nothing going on there would be no reason to make a capitol case of the whole damn thing. Had the Administration simply allowed testimony in this investigation, and not attempted to hide information from the body charged with keeping it in check....we would not be here at this point. But they did exactly that, and the Congress is doing what we ask it to do, making sure the interest of the population is represented, and we actually KNOW what the people we have elected are doing for us.

If you were trying to get the goods on the godfather....wouldn't you start with Tony two fingers?

aceventura3 · 07-03-2007, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

Out of curiosity....what did you think of Clintons' punishment. Oh..thats right...you considered him guilty of justice violations, and that he got off easy. Please, explain to us all how this is a different matter,and take into consideration you comments in this very thread.

I have posted my thoughts several times. I think the impeachment of Clinton was wrong and a waste. During that period I changed my party registration to Libertarian. I am not sure where you got the basis of your view here, but it was not from me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so it appears to follow for you, ace, that anything a republican administration does is huny dory, while the reverse is true for a democrat.

There is no validity to your premise. There are many things done by Republicans that I do not support. The latest was their emotional and often shrill reaction to immigration reform. I often criticize Congress for their lack of conviction, this includes members of both parties. We have real problems to deal with, and we have people in Washington playing games. If you want to know more about what I don't like about Republicans, ask.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

It's not the outing that's the problem. I mean... that's obviously a problem, but the MUCH bigger problem is the cover-up. THAT'S what Libby was part of. Libby might have had nothing at all to do personally with the leak, that's entirely beside the point. Libby personally acted repeatedly to withhold the truth from the investigation and the American people. That's his crime. That crime, by all federal sentencing guidelines, carries jail time. Unless, apparently, you have a friend in the White House (who may or may not have been behind your cover-up activities).

You say "the cover up" is the problem. What was covered up? the administration "outed" Plame in retaliation for her husband's attempts to discredit the case for war. The folks in the office of the VP where the key players, including Chaney. Fitzgerald did not bring the case to trial for some reason. Fitzgerald had the power to force the issue, but he did not do it. He went after a fringe player. You should be asking him why.

ratbastid · 07-03-2007, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

You say "the cover up" is the problem. What was covered up? the administration "outed" Plame in retaliation for her husband's attempts to discredit the case for war. The folks in the office of the VP where the key players, including Chaney. Fitzgerald did not bring the case to trial for some reason. Fitzgerald had the power to force the issue, but he did not do it. He went after a fringe player. You should be asking him why.

I don't know how many dozens of times this has been explained to you.

You know what happened. I know what happened. Fitzgerald knows what happened. NONE of that is the point. Without evidence, without some people talking, the legal process goes nowhere. Fitzgerald is a good enough prosecutor to know what makes a case and what doesn't. And the White House was utterly unwilling to come forward and put people under oath. And one of the only people they could get under oath lied in a provable way.

What do you do about that if you're Fitzgerald? You do the best you can--you nail the one person whose malfeasance you can prove: Scooter Libby for obstructing justice.

It's how the law works. "Beyond a reasonable doubt", it's called. If you trot out the "I don't know why Fitzerald didn't...." line again, all you'll be doing is proving the willfulness of your ignorance.

What I don't know is why Fitzgerald didn't nail Rove just like he did Scooter. He took evidence from Rove too. Maybe Rove was careful to keep his hands far enough off the outing that he could deny it and avoid actual perjury and obstruction. Maybe he's just a better liar.

Edit: Actually, I remember when they got done questioning Rove. It was a few hours, they had him there, and then when they were done, they quickly announced that they wouldn't need to talk to him anymore. This is the conspiracy theorist in me talking, but... Anybody else wonder what dirt Rove had on Fitzgerald to get himself off the hook of the investigation? Blackmail is VERY much within Rove's MO.

powerclown · 07-03-2007, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

If you were trying to get the goods on the godfather....wouldn't you start with Tony two fingers?

Exactly.
Come on, man....you know what the game was here. Can't get the big fish, get SOMETHING. It's the #1 rule for prosecutors. Fitzgerald could have (did?) summoned anyone in Washington DC to testify.

tecoyah · 07-04-2007, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Exactly.
Come on, man....you know what the game was here. Can't get the big fish, get SOMETHING. It's the #1 rule for prosecutors. Fitzgerald could have (did?) summoned anyone in Washington DC to testify.

Yes, I know the game. Many people were called in to testify, unfortunately they were not allowed to do so by the people who had the power to prevent it (who just happen to also be the target of investigation). I hope we both understand the position Fitzgerald must have been in, and the reasoning behind his prosecution of Libby,it was not only all he could get but might have been a way to compel the man to be honest for a change. With the pardon issued by the president, he no goes free and that last chance for Data is removed....the President had no real choice but to do as he did if he wanted to cover his ass.

My issue is the blatant disregard the Administration has shown for our system of justice, not only with the pardon but in virtually dozens of "forgetful" witnesses, obstruction of investigations and multiple levels of secrecy that do not seem related to national security. If you see no problem with what is going on up there...that is certainly your perogative. Understand though, that many do not carry the level of trust you do, when it comes to the foundations of the country they live in.

host · 07-04-2007, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Exactly.
Come on, man....you know what the game was here. Can't get the big fish, get SOMETHING. It's the #1 rule for prosecutors. Fitzgerald could have (did?) summoned anyone in Washington DC to testify.

powerclown.... two questions....

This was happening in the same month as Libby was sentenced....how do you think Siegelman's experience with the federal criminal court system compares to Libby's? Do you really believe Libby, in comparison, was "railroaded" by the prosecution? Your argument seems contrived, baseless; extremely unconvincing, and without merit to me, even without the Siegelman example for comparison.....

Quote:

Comparing Scooter's Supporters'l Apoplexy RE:His Jailing vs. Treatment of Ex. Dem Gov
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=120276

Am I missing something here? I'm starting this with reporting on treatment by Bush appointed federal judge in Alabama, of ex-governor and democrat, Don Siegelman, after he was sentenced in federal court, yesterday, compared to treatment of republican Scooter, after his sentencingby a Bush appointed judge, and the treatment by federal judges of two former republican governors after sentencing.

Was Don Siegelman, more "high profile", than the three republicans? Isn't the case against Siegelman, the weakest of the four? No one accuses him of taking money for his own personal gain. Why the 30 year sentence recommendation from prosecutors, for his "crimes". Why was he taken into custody immediately after he was sentenced, put in leg shackles in public, stripped of his belt and personal effects, allowed no time to say goodbye to his family, and removed from the courtroom by US Marshalls, to an "undisclosed location"?

I then posted examples of the contrast between Siegelman's "treatment", and that of two former republican governors, by their sentencing judges, and you already are familiar with Libby's judge permitting him to go home for nine days after sentencing, pending the filing an review of his lawyer's motion to allow him to remain free, pending appeal, and the granting of a 45 day "grace period" by the court, before Libby is required to report to prison.

I ended with supporting articles of the fact that a republican attorney in Alabama, in good standing, with no known negative critiques of her reliability or reputation, has sworn in an affadavit that Karl Rove appears to have intervened with the DOJ to 'fix" Don Siegelman....to force him to back down from contesting his last governor's race, which ended in very close vote count
that should reasonably have been contested. The resulting prosecution of Siegelman was the second by the feds since 2004, after Siegelman was acquitted of all counts against him in the first trial....

Why was no respect or deference accorded a former governor, by the court....when it seems that he was not convicted of a crime of personal greed, and in a case where it seems that he had grounds for appeal at least as strong as those of former Ill. Gov., Ryan?

Why the push by prosecutors for a 30 year sentence on such convictions, or the approval of the judge to negatively take into account the majority of charges against Siegelman, when considering his punishment, since he was acquitted of most of the charges?

I see an alarming double standard in the way Siegelman was treated by the sentencing judge, compared to those of the high profile republicans, Ryan, Rowland, and Libby. Instead of affirming that "justice is blind", if that is what the judge really intended, this leaves me with the impression that Siegelman was treated in a highly partisan and vengeful way, more outrageous if Rove did use his power to target Siegelman in order to end his challenge of the vote count in the contested Alabama governor's race......

<b>If you continue to refuse to post sources that support your argument that Libby should not have been "singled out for prosecution, because "there was no underlying crime"....is it unreasonable for me to assume that you have simply embraced unsupportable conservative talking points...that that is all you've got?

....again....I get the information that sahpes my opinion from news reporting, court filings, cour transcripts, and public statements by officials like Comey and Fitzgerald....what is shaping your opinion?:</b>
[quote]

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...4&postcount=51
Page 1

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA )
) CR. NO. 05-394 (RBW)
v. ))
I. LEWIS LIBBY, )
also known as Scooter Libby )
GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM
The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by its attorney, PATRICK J. FITZGERALD,
Special Counsel, respectfully submits the following sentencing memorandum:

........This memorandum addresses the seriousness of defendant’s
offense conduct and <b>responds to certain possible mitigating arguments identified in the
Presentence Investigation Report</b>.....

Page 10

<h3>The argument that Mr. Libby is an innocent wrongly charged</h3> because it was known
early in the investigation that others had leaked the identity of Valerie Wilson overlooks
critical facts as well as the jury’s carefully reasoned verdict. First, the evidence at trial
proved that Mr. Libby was guilty, not innocent. Mr. Libby learned about Ms. Wilson’s CIA
employment in June 2003 directly from the Vice President, as well as from senior
government officials from both the State Department (Marc Grossman) and the CIA (Bob
Grenier) and Cathie Martin, who handled public affairs for the Vice President. <b>The evidence
showed that Mr. Libby was aggravated about Ambassador Wilson</b> and paid exceptionally
close attention in June and July 2003 to media stories about Mr. Wilson. Mr. Libby disclosed
information about Ms. Wilson’s employment <h3>to Judith Miller on June 23.</h3>

Following Ambassador Wilson’s Op Ed <h3>in the New York Times on July 6, 2003</h3>, Mr.
Libby inserted himself even more in the press response to Mr. Wilson. On July 7, he
disclosed the information <b>about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment to Ari Fleischer</b>, then the
White House press secretary, in what Mr. Fleischer described as a “weird lunch.” The next
morning, Mr. Libby disclosed the information about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment again
to reporter Miller. Mr. Libby provided information about Mr. Wilson and Ms. Wilson on the
condition that any attribution <b>disguise him as a “former Hill staffer.”</b> Later that week, Mr.

Page 11

Libby confirmed the information about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment to reporter Matt
Cooper, who had first learned the information from Karl Rove.

The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby
kept the Vice President apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned
about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment. The evidence <b>proved that Mr. Libby invented a
conversation about Ms. Wilson’s employment with Mr. Russert, lied about other
conversations with other officials and reporters and claimed not to have known the
information</b> he was spreading to reporters about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment was true.

Mr. Libby even went so far as to claim that he was “surprised” and “taken aback” by what
Mr. Russert had told him about Ms. Wilson and the CIA on July 10, and to claim that Mr.
Libby did not even know at the time of his conversations with reporters that Mr. Wilson had
a wife. Mr. Libby also claimed to have a clear memory <h3>that the only topic he did not discuss
with the Vice President in the aftermath of the Wilson Op Ed was Ms. Wilson’s CIA
employment.</h3>

Second, it is <b>undisputed but of no moment that it was known early in the investigation
that two other persons (Richard Armitage and Karl Rove)</h3> in addition to Mr. Libby had
disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity to reporters, and that Messrs. Armitage and Rove were the
sources for columnist Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column, which first publicly disclosed
Ms. Wilson’s CIA affiliation. The investigation was never limited to disclosure of Ms.
Wilson’s CIA affiliation to Mr. Novak; rather, from the outset the investigation sought to

Page 12

determine who disclosed information about Ms. Wilson to various reporters, including – but
not limited to – Mr. Novak.

From these facts, <h3>it is argued either that the entire investigation should have been
quickly terminated or that it was inappropriate that at the end of the investigation only Mr.
Libby was charged. We address both arguments below.</h3>

<b>1. Termination of the Investigation</b>
The assertion that the collective facts known at an early point in the investigation
warranted a summary termination of the investigation does not stand up to close scrutiny.

First, it was clear from very early in the investigation that <h3>Ms. Wilson qualified under the
relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity
had been disclosed by public officials</h3>, including Mr. Libby, to the press. Early in the
investigation, however, the critical issue remained as to precisely what the particular officials
knew about Ms. Wilson’s status and what the officials intended when they disclosed her
identity to the media. Moreover, in assessing the intent of these individuals, it was necessary
to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known
to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and
also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others.

This was particularly <h3>important in light of Mr. Libby’s statement to the FBI that he may have
discussed Ms. Wilson’s employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President.</h3>

Page 13

Finally, it remained to be determined whether the accounts of various persons who
disclosed the information to the media were truthful, and, if not, whether any false statement
made could be proven to be intentionally false. In that vein, it became apparent at an early
stage of the investigation that <b>Mr. Libby’s account was sharply contradicted by the accounts
of other witnesses, most notably Tim Russert. The investigation thus appropriately continued</b>
for several months after the October 2003 disclosures by Messrs. Armitage, Rove and Libby,
under the direction of then Attorney General Ashcroft, until late December 2003 when
Special Counsel was appointed.

The investigation then continued for the same reasons. It also bears note that <h3>although certain
of Mr. Libby’s supporters have suggested that it was improper for the investigation to continue
without publicly disclosing what Mr. Armitage, Mr. Rove, and Mr. Libby admitted in interviews or
before the grand jury, maintaining the confidentiality of witness statements and testimony was
not only required by law, but was an appropriate and routine investigative practice that protected
witnesses’ privacy, reduced the risk that witnesses would influence each others’ recollections and
testimony, and protected the reputations of uncharged persons.</h3>

To accept the argument that Mr. Libby’s prosecution is the inappropriate product of
an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, <h3>one must accept the
proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking
government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information
about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly

Page 14

contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant
activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby
himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice
President.</h3> <h2>To state this claim is to refute it.</h2> Peremptorily closing this investigation in the
face of the information available at its early stages <h3>would have been a dereliction of duty, and
would have afforded Mr. Libby and others preferential treatment not accorded to ordinary
persons implicated in criminal investigations.</h3>

<b>2. Prosecution of Mr. Libby for Obstruction of Justice and Perjury in
the Absence of a Prosecution of Any Person for the Underlying
Disclosure of Classified Information</b>

Nor is it of any consequence to Mr. Libby’s conduct – perjury and obstruction of
justice – that others may have engaged in similar disclosures of classified information for
which neither Mr. Libby nor they were charged. At the end of the investigation, after all the
information was gathered – including testimony of the reporters and relevant documents –
a decision was made not to pursue substantive charges for the disclosure of classified
information about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment.

This fact does not support the logical leap
that investigators knew at the beginning of the investigation that no such charges would be
brought, nor does it have any bearing on the propriety of Mr. Libby’s prosecution for perjury.
While not commenting on the reasons for the charging decisions as to any other
persons, we can say that the reasons why Mr. Libby was not charged with an offense directly
relating to his unauthorized disclosures of classified information regarding Ms. Wilson

Page 15

included, but were not limited to, the fact that Mr. Libby’s false testimony obscured a
confident determination of what in fact occurred, particularly where the accounts of the
reporters with whom Mr. Libby spoke (and their notes) did not include any explicit evidence
specifically proving that Mr. Libby knew that Ms. Wilson was a covert agent. <b>On the other
hand, there was clear proof of perjury and obstruction of justice which could be prosecuted
in a relatively straightforward trial.</b> As Judge Tatel noted in his concurring opinion in In re
Grand Jury Subpoena, Judith Miller, 438 F.3d 1141, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2006), “insofar as false
testimony may have impaired the special counsel’s identification of culprits, perjury in this
context is itself a crime with national security implications. What’s more, because the
charges contemplated here relate to false denials of responsibility for Plame’s exposure,
prosecuting perjury or false statements would be tantamount to punishing the leak.”

Finally, the suggestion that there is something unusual or inappropriate about pursuing
a prosecution for a crime of obstruction where the underlying crime is not prosecuted is a red
herring <h3>(and oddly suggests that Mr. Libby’s prosecution would not have been “wrongful”
if only the government had brought more charges against him or others).</h3> Such perjury
prosecutions are hardly unusual; indeed, <b>as the Supreme Court noted in Mandujano, our
system of justice would break down if witnesses were allowed to lie with impunity.</b> This is
especially true where the lies at issue succeeded in preventing the investigators from
determining with confidence what had occurred.

Page 16

In light of the foregoing, the assertions offered in mitigation are <h3>consistent with an
effort by Mr. Libby’s supporters to shift blame away from Mr. Libby for his illegal conduct
and onto those who investigated and prosecuted Mr. Libby for unexplained “political”
reasons.</h3> The assertions provide no basis for Mr. Libby to receive a reduced sentence.

The record should be clear that the grand jury investigation was conducted fairly and in
appropriate secrecy; <h3>Mr. Libby had ample legal resources and talent available to him to raise
all appropriate legal challenges and mount a legal defense</h3>; the Court provided Mr. Libby
substantial opportunity to follow through on the defense he proffered; and the jury carefully
and dispassionately weighed the evidence over the course of many days and convicted on
four counts and acquitted on another. <h3>While the disappointment of Mr. Libby’s friends and
supporters is understandable, it is inappropriate to deride the judicial process as “politics at
its worst” on behalf of a defendant who, the evidence has established beyond a reasonable
doubt, showed contempt for the judicial process when he obstructed justice by repeatedly
lying under oath about material matters in a serious criminal investigation.</h3>....

powerclown, on this, the 231st anniversary of the first "we the people" declaration.... we have, on display here....your unsupported faux cycnicism about Libby "the victim", in all of it's tiny "parroted talking point" seeming....splendor...alongside the worst example of the presidential "screwing" of the actual victims in this case; "we the people":

Quote:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/bench.../gonzales.html
Libby, the President and a 1,000-Year-Old Song

....So, ultimately, you will have to judge whether you agree with President Bush's assessment that the interests of fairness and justice have been served by allowing this convicted felon, Libby, the sort of leniency that eluded Martha Stewart and hundreds of other folks who have been convicted of obstructing justice and committing perjury during a federal investigation. Me? All I could think about when I heard Libby's good news was the old spiritual song "Dayenu," sung at Passover dinners for more than 1,000 years. "It would have been enough for us" is the theme. Here goes......

<b>You've got "balls", powerclown....I'll give you that....but that's all I'll give you. A Happy & Safe July 4th, to You !</b>

roachboy · 07-04-2007, 09:00 AM

it is pretty clear that the right's talkingpoints on this are not far from the line the administration has followed: not thinking there was a crime involved in compromising plame because--of course--the partisan interests of the bush administration and the obligations they recognize in the exercise of power are the same. so because the bush people felt themselves justified in what they did, it was justified so far as the conservative set is concerned as well (all these heroic individual conservatives have come to the same view in the same language at the same time--my god, what a convergence...)
so libby can at once be a participant in the outing and obstruction of justice AND be the administration's designated fall guy.
this seems the logic of the communtation as well--as fall guy, there is no reason for jail--as actor, there are consequences for the moment.

personally, i expect a quiet full pardon will be granted libby at some point, when there are distractions on other fronts maybe.

host · 07-05-2007, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

it is pretty clear that the right's talkingpoints on this are not far from the line the administration has followed: not thinking there was a crime involved in compromising plame because--of course--the partisan interests of the bush administration and the obligations they recognize in the exercise of power are the same. so because the bush people felt themselves justified in what they did, it was justified so far as the conservative set is concerned as well (all these heroic individual conservatives have come to the same view in the same language at the same time--my god, what a convergence...)
so libby can at once be a participant in the outing and obstruction of justice AND be the administration's designated fall guy.
this seems the logic of the communtation as well--as fall guy, there is no reason for jail--as actor, there are consequences for the moment.

personally, i expect a quiet full pardon will be granted libby at some point, when there are distractions on other fronts maybe.

<b>The democrats from time, to time....will sodomize "we the people"...but at least they'll use vaseline.....</b>

Bush came out of nowhere to eliminate Scooter's sentence, because he said that he thought it was excessive. How does that interest and action related to Libby's sentence, square with Bush's prior record in such matters?

Quote:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsid...ese-.html#more
Which Of These Things Is Not Like The Other?

by hilzoy

So I asked myself: self, if George W. Bush is so worried about excessive sentences, how has he acted in previous cases in which a sentence might seem excessive? Herewith, some examples, which I'll put below the fold. Here's the short version: Serving twelve years for a rape that DNA testing shows you didn't commit does not get you a pardon. Being represented by a lawyer who slept through large chunks of the trial does not get you a pardon. Being convicted of murder in proceedings that a court-appointed special master describes as ""a breakdown of the adversarial process" caused by the incompetence of your lawyer does not get you a pardon, even when someone else confesses on tape to the murder you were convicted of. Likewise, when someone else confesses to the murder you were convicted of and you ask for a stay of execution in order to conduct tests that will establish your innocence, no dice. And when you are unquestionably incompetent to assist in your own defense but no one seems to take that fact into account, or tells the jury, that's just too bad. None of these sentences are in any way excessive, as far as George W. Bush is concerned.

But when you are Scooter Libby, convicted of four felony charges, and you face thirty months in jail, that's excessive.

If anyone wants to do their part to reduce sentences that really are excessive, you can make a contribution to the Innocence <a href="https://secure.ga6.org/08/donatenow">Project here></a>, and think of Scooter while you give.

(1) <a href="http://www2.bc.edu/~sydnor/6.html#_ftnref21">Kevin Byrd</a>: convicted of rape, spent twelve years in prison, cleared by DNA, not pardoned.....

...read the rest, if you can control your sense of outrage and your wonder that one man could be such a liar and a hypocrite...and still not have been impeached....or even hold the office, in the first place....

,,,and then, ask your self...why did Bush bother to give us such feeble and hypcritical justification for freeing Libby? Did Bush's decision and explanation measure up more to the respect that we all were shown by this:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/op...&ex=1183521600
February 18, 2001
My Reasons for the Pardons
By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. — Because of the intense scrutiny and criticism of the pardons of Marc Rich and his partner Pincus Green and because legitimate concerns have been raised, I want to explain what I did and why.

First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives the president broad and unreviewable power to grant "Reprieves and Pardons" for all offenses against the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that the pardon power is granted "[t]o the [president] . . ., and it is granted without limit" (United States v. Klein). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that "[a] pardon . . . is . . . the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by [the pardon] . . ." (Biddle v. Perovich). A president may conclude a pardon or commutation is warranted for several reasons: the desire to restore full citizenship rights, including voting, to people who have served their sentences and lived within the law since; a belief that a sentence was excessive or unjust; personal circumstances that warrant compassion; or other unique circumstances.

The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial. The reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation.

On Jan. 20, 2001, I granted 140 pardons and issued 36 commutations. During my presidency, I issued a total of approximately 450 pardons and commutations, compared to 406 issued by President Reagan during his two terms. During his four years, President Carter issued 566 pardons and commutations, while in the same length of time President Bush granted 77. President Ford issued 409 during the slightly more than two years he was president.

The vast majority of my Jan. 20 pardons and reprieves went to people who are not well known. Some had been sentenced pursuant to mandatory-sentencing drug laws, and I felt that they had served long enough, given the particular circumstances of the individual cases. Many of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal records; in some cases, codefendants had received significantly shorter sentences. At the attorney general's request, I commuted one death sentence because the defendant's principal accuser later changed his testimony, casting doubt on the defendant's guilt. In some cases, I granted pardons because I felt the individuals had been unfairly treated and punished pursuant to the Independent Counsel statute then in existence. The remainder of the pardons and commutations were granted for a wide variety of fact-based reasons, but the common denominator was that the cases, like that of Patricia Hearst, seemed to me deserving of executive clemency. Overwhelmingly, the pardons went to people who had been convicted and served their time, so the impact of the pardon was principally to restore the person's civil rights. Many of these, including some of the more controversial, had vigorous bipartisan support.

The pardons that have attracted the most criticism have been the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who were indicted in 1983 on charges of racketeering and mail and wire fraud, arising out of their oil business.

Ordinarily, I would have denied pardons in this case simply because these men did not return to the United States to face the charges against them. However, I decided to grant the pardons in this unusual case for the following legal and foreign policy reasons: (1) I understood that the other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department, which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax treatment of all the items in question, and [that] there was no unreported federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the [challenged] transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200 million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries, and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health programs in Gaza and the West Bank.

While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be available and warranted. I knew the men's companies had settled their disputes with the government, but I did not know what personal liability the individuals might still have for Energy Department or other violations.

Therefore, I required them to waive any and all defenses, including their statute of limitations defenses, to any civil charge the government might bring against them. Before I granted the pardons, I received from their lawyer a letter confirming that they "waive any and all defenses which could be raised to the lawful imposition of civil fines or penalties in connection with the actions and transactions alleged in the indictment against them pending in the Southern District of New York."

I believe my pardon decision was in the best interests of justice. If the two men were wrongly indicted in the first place, justice has been done. On the other hand, if they do personally owe money for Energy Department penalties, unpaid taxes or civil fines, they can now be sued civilly, as others in their position apparently were, a result that might not have been possible without the waiver, because civil statutes of limitations may have run while they were out of the United States.

While I was aware of and took into account the fact that the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York did not support these pardons, in retrospect, the process would have been better served had I sought her views directly. Further, I regret that Mr. Holder did not have more time to review the case. However, I believed the essential facts were before me, and I felt the foreign policy considerations and the legal arguments justified moving forward.

The suggestion that I granted the pardons because Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise, made political contributions and contributed to the Clinton library foundation is utterly false. There was absolutely no quid pro quo. Indeed, other friends and financial supporters sought pardons in cases which, after careful consideration based on the information available to me, I determined I could not grant.

In the last few months of my term, many, many people called, wrote or came up to me asking that I grant or at least consider granting clemency in various cases. These people included friends, family members, former spouses of applicants, supporters, acquaintances, Republican and Democratic members of Congress, journalists and total strangers. I believe that the president can and should listen to such requests, although they cannot determine his decision on the merits. There is only one prohibition: there can be no quid pro quo. And there certainly was not in this or any of the other pardons and commutations I granted.

I am accustomed to the rough and tumble of politics, but the accusations made against me in this case have been particularly painful because for eight years I worked hard to make good decisions for the American people. I want every American to know that, while you may disagree with this decision, I made it on the merits as I saw them, and I take full responsibility for it.

William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States.

....or...were we shown more respect by not being told anything?

Quote:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardonop5.htm
Keys to Clemency Reform: Knowledge, Transparency

Professor P.S. Ruckman, Jr.
Rock Valley College, Rockford, Illinois

.......Put simply, none of us has comprehensive knowledge of who in American history received a Presidential pardon, for what, or when. Suppose, as a test, one wants to find the names of those pardoned by Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Reagan. All of Washington's hand-written clemency warrants are on microfilm these days. All of Lincoln's hand-written warrants are on microfilm. <h3>There is no public list for Ronald Reagan, microfilmed or not</h3>...........

Quote:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20040430/index.htm
For release 30 April 2004
ARCHIVE, HISTORIANS ASK JUDGE TO RETHINK DISMISSAL,
PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT CASE STILL NOT RESOLVED;
NEW BUSH ORDER ADDS 140 DAYS TO PROCESSING TIME;
JUDGE RECOGNIZED INJURY BUT THOUGHT IT MOOT.

Washington, D.C., April 30 - A federal judge's dismissal last month of a landmark open government case was based on two factual misconceptions and deserves re-opening, according to court filings last week. The lawsuit challenges <h3>President Bush's Executive Order 13,233 that gave former Presidents and their heirs (as well as former Vice-Presidents for the first time)</h3> indefinite authority to hold up release of White House records...

..............Background

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) emerged from the scandals of the Nixon presidency to require former presidents to release their records no later than 12 years after they leave office. Under the PRA, as amended, the U.S. government asserts complete "ownership, possession, and control" of all Presidential and Vice-Presidential records. Upon conclusion of the President's term in office, the National Archivist is required to assume custody of the records, and to make them available to the public when permissible under the PRA. Access to the records can be denied after the end of the 12-year embargo only if a former or incumbent president claims an exemption based on a "constitutionally based" executive privilege or continuing national security concern.

On February 8, 2001, shortly after President Bush came into office, he was notified of a scheduled release of Reagan presidential records (68,000 pages of records). His legal counsel requested two successive 90-day extensions of time to review the records prior to their release followed by a third request for an indefinite extension of time so that the White House could evaluate the legal framework and process that would govern release of the records. This was followed on November 1, 2001 with the issuance of Executive Order (E.O. 13,233) that gives the White House and former presidents uncontrolled discretion in deciding whether to deny the release of documents requested by journalists and scholars.

On November 28, 2001, the Archive and other plaintiffs filed suit to stop implementation of E.O. 13,233. The parties' dispositive motions were fully briefed by March 2002. During the pendency of the law suit, most pages of the initial 68,000 were reviewed by the administration and released, with an additional 74 pages being barred from release by an assertion of constitutional privilege over those pages by the Bush Administration. But, in the intervening two years, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Vanderbilt University professor Hugh Davis Graham, died while waiting for access to the Reagan era records on domestic policy.

On March 29, 2004, the court dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds. The District Court mistakenly believed that the original 68,000 pages of records scheduled for release constituted the complete collection of Reagan presidential records subject to the Executive Order and that the plaintiffs do not dispute the assertion of constitutional privilege over the 74 pages that continue to be withheld.

<h3>.....Among the records withheld: a six-page 8 December 1986 memo to the President and Director of Public Affairs entitled, "Talking Points on Iran/Contra Affairs"; a series of memos dated 22 November and 1 December 1988 for the President entitled, "Pardon for Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Joseph Fernandez"</h3>; and a two-page memo for the President from the Attorney General, "Appeal of the Decision Denying the Enforcement of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987." Other withheld memos relate to the release of Justice Rehnquist's papers and materials relating to "Use of Military Aircraft by Mrs. Reagan."......

Quote:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_n13899878
Man Reagan pardoned is murder suspect
Chicago Sun-Times, Feb 26, 2001

HILLSBORO, Ore. A man accused of killing his wife and dismembering and burning her body had once received a pardon from former President Ronald Reagan.

Robert Wendell Walker Jr., 53, was arrested and accused of killing his wife. He is in jail awaiting trial in May.

When he was 21, Walker tried to rob a Portland bank. He surrendered and was sentenced to five years on probation.

Reagan granted him a pardon in 1981 for the conviction. In 1977, Oregon Gov. Bob Straub had pardoned him for two shoplifting convictions.

<h3>It is unknown why Reagan granted the pardon</h3>, one of 393 he granted during his eight years in office.....

07-03-2007, 11:08 AM	#44 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so it appears to follow for you, ace, that anything a republican administration does is huny dory, while the reverse is true for a democrat. that has nothing to do with "reasonableness"...it is what neitzsche would have referred to as a slave mentality, that kind of cringing deference to recieved opinion the main function of which is to enable you to avoid posing questions that may be troublesome. i personally do not care what the psychological explanations might be for this servility. it doesnt interest me. i do find the fact that this utterly servile relation to conservative talking points issues into a defense of resoluteness on the part of cowboy george: maybe this is an enabling mechanism that helps erase the fact of servility by projecting manliness onto another, so that you do not miss what you give away when you subordinate yourself to conservative ideology. projection is a fave in conservativeland. the mechanism is transparent to all but the inhabitants of conservativeland, who seem to live in a kind of truman show, except that even truman noticed eventually that something was fucked up. i should maybe make my position on this newest bushfarce explicit: i was not surprised that he acted as he did. i am not particularly outraged about it simply because i find other, more grotesque instances of idiocy, corruption, mismanagement, incompetence more disturbing. i understand that libby acquired considerable significance both materially--what he did was serious, and the proceedings against him cannot be dismissed by a sane observer as a "political witchhunt" (a particularly empty retro-meme)--and symbolically. the symbolic dimension is the sad part: it is an expression of political impotence. the american system is not structured that an administration as overwhelmingly incompetent as that of the bush people cannot be gotten rid of until its term has expired. voter suppression in the selection process are irrelevant. congress is paralyzed: nothing the bush people have done will be actionable, and if there is something, it will be a very difficult procedural fight to even bring it to the floor (we'll see what happens with leahey's subpoenas re. wiretapping)...and popular sentiment is of no consequence--the conservative press lauds the administration for taking no account of popular sentiment. manliness precludes it. so apparently democracy only matters when it is convenient. which is that way of the right. the bush people continue to ride their own internal logic of obliviousness and contempt down toward the singel digits in popularity ratings, grinding the whole of the american political and legal systems into a legitimation crisis even as they claim to defend them. and it doesnt matter--not to the administration, not to those few people who continue to support the administration--together, they see nothing--it is this pathetic context that libby functions as symbol, and the bush action is also far more problematic at the symbolic level than it is at the material level (for me anyway because the only surprise in this was that bush waited as long as he did to exculpate the loyalist effectively...) sooner or later you have to look at the worldview you inhabit, ace, and try to figure out if it actually makes sense or not. i do not care whether you adopt another politics--mine least of all--i really dont. but i do not understand how it is at this point possible for you or anyone else to continue confusing conservatism with a rational political viewpoint. you have 6 fucking years of seeing the implications of your ideology unfolded. and there is not one--NOT ONE--area that has not been made worse for the past 6 years. that you refuse to look is what makes your posts read as servile, ace, and that servility is what makes your posts contemptable. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-03-2007, 11:33 AM	#48 (permalink)
ubertuber spudly Location: Ellay	I see the intellectual thread here, but let's not make this about Ace... __________________ Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

07-04-2007, 09:00 AM	#59 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it is pretty clear that the right's talkingpoints on this are not far from the line the administration has followed: not thinking there was a crime involved in compromising plame because--of course--the partisan interests of the bush administration and the obligations they recognize in the exercise of power are the same. so because the bush people felt themselves justified in what they did, it was justified so far as the conservative set is concerned as well (all these heroic individual conservatives have come to the same view in the same language at the same time--my god, what a convergence...) so libby can at once be a participant in the outing and obstruction of justice AND be the administration's designated fall guy. this seems the logic of the communtation as well--as fall guy, there is no reason for jail--as actor, there are consequences for the moment. personally, i expect a quiet full pardon will be granted libby at some point, when there are distractions on other fronts maybe. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-04-2007 at 09:03 AM..

07-03-2007, 11:26 AM	#46 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Question: Why was it ok for the prosecution to set Libby up as The Symbol of the Bush Administration, when Libby had nothing to do with the original reason for the trial? If this trial was about Justice and finding and punishing whomever outed a covert CIA agent, why isn't Dick Armitage - the guy who outed Plame and started the ball rolling for a prosecution - rotting in a jail cell right this minute?

07-03-2007, 11:32 AM	#47 (permalink)
Superbelt This vexes me. I am terribly vexed. Location: Grantville, Pa	Why isn't Armitage rotting in a jail cell right now? Well, it's apparently a hard to prove crime. One made substantially harder to prove when the parties involved lie when brought before the grand jury. One gets caught in several lies, and gets handed a 'get out of jail free' card.

07-03-2007, 11:49 AM	#50 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	I personally have hesitated to use Ace as a target until recently. Unfortunately it seems he is the only conservative willing to stand by his ethical viewpoint in this current cycle of events, and is thus the only one to debate at this point. Though taking powerclown to task seems a viable alternative, he at least seems to understand the position he places himself in. Over the next several months, we will likely see far more attention payed to those who support the Bush ethics....I suggest you all get ready for it.