quote:

Originally posted by Shakka I agree. We've seen far more egregious actions than this from many past administrations. And this is surely no surprise as, at least I thought, it was largely expected that Libby would be completely pardoned. He didn't even get off that lightly in this case.

In truth I'm not surprised either, but given the situation in which it occurred:

quote:

where a president not more than a month ago stated he wouldn’t interfere, jumped right over the guidelines of the DOJ, didn’t even bother to wait for the appeals courts to finish up, and didn’t even bother REDUCING the sentence (after all he did state that his sentence was EXCESSIVE, not UNWARRANTED or UNNECESSARY) according to the parole board recommendations.

There's tons of speculation not just by Democrats as to why Bush did this. It's tempting as hell to think that the rationale is to keep Libby from being polled into Congressional hearings (i.e. he could successfully plead the 5th until the appeals process is finished up), but there simply isn't enough evidence to state that with certainty.

One still has to wonder exactly why Bush felt compelled to take such extraordinary measures to pull his sentence down to nothing while allowing more than 1,000 commute requests to be turned down.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

And I guess on the brighter side of things, now that Libby's out of jail and no further criminal investigation is proceeding, we can take our memories back to this moment last February:

quote:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, we've now learned through sworn testimony that at least three members of your administration, other than Scooter Libby, leaked Valerie Plame's identity to the media. None of these three is known to be under investigation. Without commenting on the Libby trial, then, can you tell us whether you authorized any of these three to do that, or were they authorized without your permission? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thanks, Pete. I'm not going to talk about any of it. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20070214-2.html

And know now that Bush will be much more forthright to everyone and start talking about it. I'm sure he'll be dislosing everything he knows about it for all to see, no doubt.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by XaNaX Why is this even news? Just about every President pardons/commutes the sentences of the leutenants that helped and protected them. Democrats need to keep their mouths shut on this, just go look at Clinton's record on pardons.

So... instead of recognizing the corruption and standing against it, we justify it instead and allow it to continue?

quote:

Originally posted by bubble whether or not she was not a spy is IRRELEVANT or IMMATERIAL.

thats what the Judge Walton said, NOT ME FFS! Early in discovery, Libby's lawyers sought documents which addressed the topic and the government refused to provide the information because it was "irrelevant." on June 29 he told the Jury “I don’t know, based on what has been presented to me in this case, what her status was,” on Jun 31 he said it again! “I to this day don’t know what her actual status was.”

The government argued Wilson's status was "not an element of any of the three statutory violations charged." In June of 2006, the court issued a discovery order which, again, emphasized that Wilson's employment was "immaterial to the preparation of the defense." In preliminary instructions to the jury, the judge said her "actual status" was "totally irrelevant" to any "assessment" of the Libby's guilty or innocence.

After the trial, however, in its sentencing memo, the government adopted a "new position" - that Wilson was a "covert agent" and that Libby should be sentenced as though that fact were established at trial. that is where the President draws his pardon from as stated in HIS statement NOT MINE! fuck!

THERE WAS NO UNDERLYING CRIME TO BEGIN WITH. THAT FACT WAS KNOWN FROM THE START OF THE INVESTIGATION IN 2003.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Shibby So... instead of recognizing the corruption and standing against it, we justify it instead and allow it to continue?

where is the corruption in libby's commutation, HUH?

show me PLEASE where the corruption is. otherwise shut the hell up!

you haven't the slightest clue what the f**k youre talking about.

quote:

Originally posted by bubble i believe that at the heart of the commutation is not the fantasy,as some allege, that the jury or judge somehow saw materiality where there was none, and as a result of this convicted and sentenced mr. libby. rather, i think it is simply protecting the president and vp from further investigations of their wrongdoing.

what wrongdoing? seriously if you cannot come up with a shred of wrongdoing (i know you can't because Fitz tried for three years and he had more power than Congress) then whatever it is you "believe at the heart of the commutation" is pure speculation. that same speculation didn't hold up in a Federal Grand Jury, a Federal court of Law, and so far it isn't holding up in a Congressional Oversight Committee hearing. so...i don't know what to tell ya other than you may be just another hell-bent partisan that blindly hates Bush looking for something that isn't there.

quote:

if libby had to go jail, it's possible that he might have felt pressure to disclose damaging information about the present administration.

what could he disclose? i mean when it comes down to it, all this is about one man's recollection about one other person, Valerie Plame. and whether or not the Administration maliciously leaked her name to discredit Joe Wilson. thats it! everyone involved has said all there is to say about the Administration. Joe Wilson has already proven to be a liar.

quote:

the adminsitration's defense of the commutation is that the president believed that the sentence was too severe. let's pretend for moment that the president is being honest when he disclosed his feelings. who knows, perhaps he was touched by the process and the fact that someone he knows faced the possibility of doing time for perjury. maybe he's more compassionate about the those in the criminal system now and sensitive to their plight. shouldn't the president push the congress to get a bill to him that reduces the punishment for perjury. let's just say that under the new law those convicted of perjury would do no time, and face a 250,000 fine and probation. if he feels so strongly about this doesn't this seem like the correct thing to do? surely he believes that the law should be applied fairly to all and that no one is above the law? then he should support such a bill.

first of all you don't have to pretend anything. how he felt emotionally or whether he was honest with them is irrelevant. by nature of the Presidential pardon he, alone, is arbiter of the good or bad resulting from the decision and is alone in his responsibilities to such forever. regardless of original intent.

second, by the nature of the Presidential pardon again, and what a pardon or Clemency was originally designed for were isolated situations where the the rule of Law worked but the right of compassion outweigh the justice done.

like i said before the Pardon is just as much a part of the Justice system as the statutes and jurists that govern us. you don't change one to eliminate the other. thats actually a disrepect of the law.

Last edited by Q5echo on Jul-04-2007 at 05:48

quote:

Originally posted by bubble we'll never know will we?

yes, we will if we want to.

quote:

i would buy this had he been sentenced to death or life in prison, but thirty months? i recall you're in/were in the military right? i'm sure they put you through some heavy shit, so does 30 months in a low-security federal prison really seem like an injustice? he'd get family visits every weekend and have three meals a day? if he had to serve only 60% he'd be out in 18 months.

i used to routinely spend months underwater with the stink and filth of a hundred other men/boys in a cold steel tube. it was truly indentured servitude i equated to prison many times, but i knew it really wasn't.

prison sucks, i'm sure. Federal prison time for perjury and obstruction can't be a picnic either. especially not when you've served your country like Libby has decently and patriotically for as long as he has. surely it can't be a picnic if you truly believe that you have done nothing to deserve being dragged through a process that only proved your recollection and word against others and NO UNDERLYING CRIME.

quote:

sorry, the right of compassion does not outweigh the justice done. that's the point. no justice was done. had he served half his time, i might buy what you're selling, but he didn't. hell maybe even a fifth of his time, but nothing? you seriously believe what you wrote? in your hearts of hearts? justice was done? i really don't think any reasonable person would look at this and say so.

i was just explaining what the power of pardon is and why we need it.

like i said to pkcRAISTLIN, the President's call for Clemency is supposed to be rendered after he has taken ALL of the events and the life of the person in question into account and make a personal judgement.

a lot of reasonable people have come to the President's same conclusion, that it was an unjust investigation where no crime had been committed and ended very unfortunately threatening to put a decent man behind bars.

you are confusing your compassion or lack thereof with the one person's that matters. the President's

quote:

(Libby's lies) "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."

you keep using this as if bringing it up enough times it will some how validate yours and the feverswamp speculations regardless of the reality of absolutely no evidence found in a three year investigation of any law broken, with malice or otherwise.

you realize your entire theory is based on a couple of blustery sentences in a lawyer's summation during the sentencing phase of a trial that deemed the actual status of victim's identity completely irrelevant? actually, technically there was no victim in Libby's trial.

just so we're not arguing semantics here about what exactly obstruction of justice could mean, do you think Bill Clinton's obstruction of justice made it impossible for Ken Starr to make an accurate evaluation of the role Bill Clinton had the Jones Lawsuit even though he was found not guilty by Congress.

EDIT>i'm just asking for comparisons sake. i could care less about that pathological lying douche.

Last edited by Q5echo on Jul-04-2007 at 12:02

I don't mind this communion because in the larger scheme of things I prefer to have the executive branch keep a check against the judicial branch.

Depriving the executive of this ability could very easily turn into a huge determent to the founding ideals of the USA and changing the restrictions us citizens have on the way the government behaves.

Sure it might be abused from time to time, but thinking Judges do not abuse their power is as equally dangerous. There must always be a system of check and balances.

And if the cost of this system is that some people serve less time in jail or no time in jail that some other people believe they should so be it.

I always err on the side of the innocent; the American system of justice is built on this principle: it would rather see 20 guilty people run free than have 1 innocent person be wrongly incarcerated.

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quote:

Originally posted by Shakka I agree. We've seen far more egregious actions than this from many past administrations. And this is surely no surprise as, at least I thought, it was largely expected that Libby would be completely pardoned. He didn't even get off that lightly in this case.

It was largely expected because this administration has, time and time again, shown just how corrupt it is and how much it tries to distort the legal standards of this country to fit its needs. For a group of individuals that complains about lawyers and what they're doing to this country (wrongly, I might add), they seem to find them useful quite frequently. And now they've shown that even after using the best of the best, when they lose, they'll just disregard the conviction altogether because they have the power.

Also, why is everyone making this a "Bill Clinton pardoned so and so" issue? Why do some of you live in a world where one side is always right and one side is always wrong? Many people complained about the Marc Rich pardon (represented by Scooter, btw), Roger Clinton's pardon, etc. If you complain about those, how can you support this one? Did I miss the day when two wrongs started making a right?

Lastly, I find this more egregious than those, both because I hate at least 85% of what this administration has "accomplished" and because those pardons weren't granted to protect the people giving them. I don't think for a second that the majority of Americans believe Scooter Libby was as high as the corruption goes in this case, though the obstruction that he caused prevented us from finding out the entire story.

Oh, and BTW, why aren't people mentioning that Marc Rich had to pay $100 million in fines to the government (not to Clinton) for the pardon to be finalized. Scooter gets off with $250K which will be covered by Fred Thomspon's buddies that raised millions for his defense bills.

___________________
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quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo you keep using this as if bringing it up enough times it will some how validate yours and the feverswamp speculations regardless of the reality of absolutely no evidence found in a three year investigation of any law broken, with malice or otherwise.

It's becoming very tedious stating the same thing over and over with you. What do you think my response to this would be? It's the same response I've given over and over. The reason why there was not evidence of laws being broken was because Libby's lies made it impossible to accurately assess what Libby and the VP's office was up to, as well as their rationale for doing what they did. As your Republican-appointed prosecutor Fitzgerald stated, it's like "the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes" and prevented the discovery of why her name was leaked:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...5102801340.html

Jesus Christ, Libby's false little memory wasn't just a matter of lying to the FBI on where he heard of Plame's identity, which was blown out of the water by everyone at the trial, but the little neocon f$cker couldn't remember nine conversations he had with eight different people over a 4 week period!:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6424319.stm

And yet your boys prop this lying fuck up as a hero, a "true patriot" in Hannity's eyes, despite helping blow the cover off of a COVERT agent's identity and her entire operation exposed, putting more lives and CIA identities at risk as well as undermining an operation to find WMD proliferation in other countries (including one that you neocons are having the itchy trigger fingers to blow up).

So enough with the hear-no-evil/see-no-evil, talk in circles bullshit with me. You repeating the same "no underlying crime committed" rhetoric does not deter the same answer given: because Libby's lies prevented further investigation in doing so, period.

quote:

you realize your entire theory is based on a couple of blustery sentences in a lawyer's summation during the sentencing phase of a trial that deemed the actual status of victim's identity completely irrelevant?

What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Are you saying it matters not that Plame was by that time of sentencing exposed and therefore no harm was done?

Jesus Christ, can you play dumb any worse here?

quote:

actually, technically there was no victim in Libby's trial.

Seriously, put down the banana peels and smoke something else. This is just beyond asinine. The actions and repurcussions of Libby and the VP's office is what LED TO THE FUCKING TRIAL.

Tell me how this asinine argument is any different than someone murdered. Well, that person is murdered, but at the time of the trial of the person accused of murder, no one is really being hurt anymore, right? Soooo, I guess they really shouldn't have any consequences to their actions, because after all, no one is really being hurt anymore.

Makes sense, if you really stop thinking about it.

quote:

just so we're not arguing semantics here about what exactly obstruction of justice could mean, do you think Bill Clinton's obstruction of justice made it impossible for Ken Starr to make an accurate evaluation of the role Bill Clinton had the Jones Lawsuit even though he was found not guilty by Congress. EDIT>i'm just asking for comparisons sake. i could care less about that pathological lying douche.

Let's put aside the fact that we're comparing a discrete coupla blowjobs versus a national security investigation for a moment, as wel as a clearly and openly admitted partisan prosecutor Ken Starr that was going after Clinton for years on end on a wholly different Whitewater matter altogether, came up way short, and turned the investigation into a blowjob affair as a consequence once he smelled blood, versus a Republican prosecutor well-respected on both sides as being very detailed and unbiased. Clinton was tried, impeached, and aquitted in Congress in accordance to the rules of the Constitution. Ken's report was also very detailed, but it was clear he had ALL the information he needed to go after Clinton for lying about a blowjob, to which he was tried for.

If you're going to compare the actions of a majority Republican Congress letting Clinton off the hook, then I suggest you take that up with your Republican representatives who decided not to give in to the pressures of your Wingnut UberConservatives who called for Clinton's head for lying to a grand jury about a blowjob he had. I will continue to take it up with our ONE MAN who has plenary power to let off a guy who lied about his role in revealing classified information about a covert CIA agent who's role and operation was to actually protect our fucking country from WMD proliferation.

So as long as you make the comparison in full context, I'm game.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...