President Bush today commuted the 2 1/2 year prison sentence handed out to former Cheney aide "Scooter" Libby. The jail sentence, following conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, had been imposed by a Bush appointee to the federal bench. The sentence was called "excessive" by the president. The president acted after the U.S. Court of Appeals announced that there was no valid reason to delay Libby's imprisonment pending appeal.
The president, taking time from his Maine meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin, noted that Libby was a "first time offender with years of exceptional public service."
Hours later, the White House announced that President Bush would begin an investigation into all prison sentences handed down over the past five years by the federal courts. A presidential commission will identify all first time offenders with previously blameless lives. The president will commute the prison sentences of all such first offenders.
"It's only fair," stated a spokesman for the president. "The eyes of the world are upon us. After all, we aren't some banana republic where the generalissimo's henchmen get special treatment."
Monday, July 2, 2007
Scooter Skedaddles
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When I read about this on CNN yesterday, I had but one emotion...Dumbfounded.
I guess "amnesty" is a dirty word only with respect to Hispanics.
We don't want people who disrespect the laws of our nation to get off with no punishment at all...
David R. Dow, a professor at the University of Houston law school, wrote a letter to the NY Times today. He noted that when Bush was Texas governor, he refused every request to commute death penalties to life sentences, 57 in all, even when the defendant's attorney slept during trial, or when the defendant was a juvenile or was mentally retarded.
"I. Lewis Libby Jr. had the best lawyers money can buy. His crime cannot be attributed to youth or retardation. He has expressed no remorse whatsoever for lying to a grand jury or participating in the administration’s effort to mislead the American people about the war in Iraq. President Bush’s commutation of Mr. Libby’s sentence is certainly legal, but it just as surely offends the fundamental constitutional value of equality.
Because President Bush signed a commutation, a rich and powerful man will spend not a day in prison, while 57 poor and poorly connected human beings died because Governor Bush refused to lift a pen for them."
Decline and Fall
You're probably bored with the whole "Scooter" fiasco by now, but next week's Economist magazine offers an interesting lead editorial. The Economist is a British magazine, usually pro-Republican on economic issues, and moderately pro-American in its approach to the Iraq war, but one that has viewed the Bush administration, and Cheney's influence within the administration, with increasing nervousness. The editorial, after discussing the "Scooter" commutation, concludes:
"Perhaps, in the end, Mr. Bush's decision came down to a simple calculation that he has little left to lose. He is not seeking re-election, his approval ratings can barely go any lower, and any hope for legacy-polishing bipartisan co-operation with Congress seem to have evaporated. So why should Mr. Bush not please his few remaining friends and placate his vice-president by springing the loyal Mr. Libby? It makes a kind of sense, but a deeply troubling one. What else, one wonders, might so isolated a president do before he goes?"
And so the most pathetic and damaging presidency this nation's seen since at least that of Warren Harding stumbles blindly toward its conclusion.
Countdown: 18 months
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