Well, if not "people," Podwhoretz. See if you can follow this logic:
Bush won't leave office without issuing [Scooter's] pardon.
Why? Because if Bush fails to pardon Libby
, he will implicitly be accepting the contention that Scooter Libby was part of a White House conspiracy at the highest levels to destroy the career of a CIA agent whose husband had proved Bush & Co. had lied us into the Iraq War.
Um, doesn't pardoning Scooter explicitly accept the conspiracy? By letting the guilty get away clean?
Oh, wait. I'm forgetting the authoritarian mindset: “Befehlsnotstand (blind obedience), where "the Fuhrer's word is law." See, if Der Decider says there was no conspiracy, then Abracadabra! There is no conspiracy!
Apparently, the only thing in question is the timing:
In his last days as president, George W. Bush will pardon Scooter Libby - that is, if the convictions secured yesterday don't get overturned on appeal.
For political reasons, Bush can't pardon Libby earlier than that. His responsibilities as head of the Republican Party, heading into an election year, would preclude such action.
I like that "last days" riff. So eschatological. Just wait for Busherdammerung, Scooter, then we'll "take care of" you...
- lambert's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
That's some priceless irony
The best way for Bush and Cheney to clear their names is to short-circuit the law in a blatant cover-up.
It's official: fair = foul. And it's commutative, as Libby
's sentence may be, too.
www.vastleft.com
It worked for the Iran-Contra felons, Vasty
Look at how many of those criminal immoral "I was only following orders" fucks are not just still running around free but back in extremely high positions in government now that another Bush rhyzome is back in power, after having gotten pardons of just this sort from Der Leader's Daddy.
And of course the original recipient of the ultimate "pardoned for anything ever done, contemplated or carried out" get-out-of-jail-free card, Nixon, spent a serene retirement cranking out crapola books extolling his "foreign policy expertise" and those who came up under him continued mostly at the gravy train as well.
IMHO all presidential pardons should at least come with a provision that recipients thereof can never be employed, directly or indirectly (i.e. neither in paid nor "advisory" capacity) by any agency of the United States or any governmental body therein for the rest of their lives.
If I could think of a way to word it properly I would extend this Man Without A Country status to such pardonees spouses, offspring for at least two generations, and other relatives by blood or marriage to some extended degree.
Yeah it would take a Constitutional amendment. So?