…If there is a leak out of my Administration I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law the person will be taken care of.
–George Bush, September 30, 2003
…The commutation “should demonstrate to the American people how corrupt this administration is.” He suggested that its goal was to prevent Mr. Libby from telling all he knew about White House actions, particularly in the planning for war.
“By his action, the president has guaranteed that Mr. Libby has no incentive to begin telling the truth,” Mr. Wilson said.
Little could the American people imagine in 2003 when George Bush said he would “take care” of the leaker what this would actually mean in 2007. What a travesty. Alexander’s Archive wittily calls this Bush’s version of amnesty. And how right Joe Wilson is in talking about this decision as an indication of the political corruption at the heart of this Administration. Not corruption involving money. But corruption of the values, ideals and principles of constitutional law. Of course, Bush has the RIGHT to commute anyone’s sentence. That’s not what I meant by corrupting the constitution. I mean that he has subverted the rule of law and the principle that no one is above it.
So we see that in Guantanamo there are human beings who are, according to Bush, not subject to conventional American justice but rather to George Bush’s version of rough extra-constitutional justice. Conversely, we see there are Bush apparachiks who will always be protected from the application of justice to their crimes. As Pat Fitzgerald so aptly said today:
“It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals.”
I find this Bush statement not only laughable but infuriating:
“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”
First, it’s ludicrous to say he respects the jury’s verdict since he’s just shat on it. Second, here’s a guy with no law degree and an attorney general as shoddy as they come and they’re making a considered judgment that a federal judge’s sentence is “excessive?” Who’s kiddin’ who here? Libby’s damn lucky Fitzgerald didn’t actually charge him with the leak and prosecute him under much more severe terms had he been found guilty. ‘Excessive’ my ass.
Here’s what I hope: that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton when they win the White House immediately appoint Pat Fitzgerald attorney general. Then we’ll really know what it means to be a nation ruled by laws and not by whim or ideology.
In discussing the commutation with my wife, she made a terrific point. Bush, by his action, has essentially decided to write off the presidency for the Republican party. He’s said to his party’s candidates: “I could give a shit about you. Apres moi–le deluge.” Oops, that was French. Of course, he would never say that. But you get my drift.
What shocks me is that Giuliani and Romney have endorsed Bush’s action. I guess they don’t think it’s going to play too badly with the American electorate come 2008. I’m hoping they’re sorely mistaken. Of course, no single action like this will seal the deal for the Dems in 2008. But I’d sure love to see some campaign commercials in the general election reminding the electorate of Giuliani’s support for this schande if he’s the Republican candidate. I wonder what McCain is going to do. We all know what the “old” John McCain would’ve done. The Straight Talker would’ve said it stinks to high heaven. What will the expedient, pragmatic McCain do?
I recently wrote a post about Lt. Cmdr. Matt Diaz, the patriot who revealed the names of the Guantanamo detainees to a human rights lawyer. He’s serving 6 months in the Navy brig for his troubles. As we approach July 4th, it seems ironic the patriots are behind bars and the criminals get their sentences commuted!
I presume that when you hope that if Hillary is elected President she will stand for justice and the rule of law just like her old hubby Bill did when he pardoned Mark Rich, right?
I don’t support Hillary. I support Obama. I presume you’ll want to say something snappy & insulting about him too?
But Hillary will be a damn sight better than the malefactor who’s sitting in that office now.
Bill Clinton did things I didn’t approve of & that was one of them. But he was 100 times (to use yr phrase) a better president than the current occupant.
I don’t understand ” would be lousy and therefore we have no standing to criticize Bush” comments.
There we go with the Republican talking points. Instead of any discussion of Bush’s action, let’s distract the conversation with “Clinton did it”. First we have Bush run a campaign about how immoral and wrong Clinton is – and how he is going to “bring morality back to the White House”. Then we launch a war based on lies. Someone does honest work to disprove the lies – so we commit crimes (I would say in this case TREASON) to smear those who bring truth to the American people – not by smearing him – but by destroying HIS WIFE’S career.
Since we can’t defend the indefensible we simply say THE CLENIS DID IT! I don’t know anything more about Mark Rich than what I read on the Wikipedia page. The Illegal Trading charge with Iran sounds a bit questionable – considering many significan cases that went unpunished (according to Forbes magazine, the primary reason Halloburton is moving its headquarter to Dubai is so they can trade with Iran). However tax evasion and fleeing justice are serious crimes he should have answered for.
But two wrongs don’t make a right. And more importantly – Rich’s crimes were not done in comission of acts to the benefit of Clinton. As Ambassador Wilson noted, it’s not a stretch to consider Bush’s clemency an act of Criminal Obstruction himself. After promising to bring morality to the White House, GW Bush has brought new levels of corruption unseen since Harding or Grant. Comparing this to Clinton only illustrates the depth of this corrpution, it does not absolve it.
eventually it will come to this.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070702_a_declaration_of_independence_from_israel/
It’s Time for a Declaration of Independence From Israel
By Chris Hedges
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
Sam-a couple of points to keep in mind.
(1) The US military got its hands on a lot of sophisticated Soviet military equipment , items
that Israel captured. That includes the first look at a Mig-21 fighter in 1966. This was invaluable help to the USAF. I have attended aerospace conferences with top ranking people from Boeing, Lockheed and others and they point out the close cooperation between the countries in the realm of military technology. The US has gotten a LOT out of the relationship with Israel. Israel has improved a lot of American equipment and this is shared with the US.
It is NOT a one-way deal as your article claims.
(2) Let’s say the Arab dream comes true and their forces break through Israel’s lines.
5 Million Jews in Israel are facing annihilation. Backs to the wall. Assuming that Israel
does have a nuclear arsenal, the leadership now faces no option but to use it. If you were President of the US, as much as you might dislike Israel and wish it would disappear, would you be willing to see a war in the Middle East go nuclear?
Samuel,
Thanks for the link. Hedges hits all the highlights of current US/Israeli foreign policy misadventures. Too bad this article could never appear in the Washington Post or the New York Times.
And let’s not forget the most delicious irony of all regarding Mark Rich’s pardon by Bill Clinton. Rich’s lawyer was…you guessed it, Scooter Libby! Guess the Scoot has the inside track on pardons.
And I note that when asked today whether he would fully pardon Libby in future, Bush said “I never say never” or something to that effect. Guess what’s coming in the last days of Bush’s presidency? A “Mark Rich” special, that’s what.
so it doesnt really matter which party is in the oval office…..they are all above the rule of law. with liberty and justice for all has been ammended and now it says with liberty and justice for all in varying degrees.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11236
While the rest of us – the serfs – are at the mercy of such laws as the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act [.pdf], and the extensive surveillance and snooping authorized by a Congress that has betrayed its constitutional mandate, our rulers – and especially the philosopher-kings of the neoconservative sect – are exempt. The president’s action merely confirms the neocons’ worldview, which, according to their guru, the philosopher-cult figure Leo Strauss, places a few “enlightened” souls far above us common everyday folk. According to Straussian doctrine, these Wise Men – our leaders – are the possessors of a secret knowledge, which is dangerous for ordinary men, but in their hands is a Force for Good. Their wisdom is so potentially subversive that they are forced to speak in code. When Scooter’s “turning aspens” missive to Judy Miller showed up, John Dickerson, writing at Slate.com, reported:
and this from takis website….on libby marc rich and pollard the israeli spy…
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_scooter_libby_jay_pollard_marc_rich_connection
The then-Prime Minister from Tel Aviv, Ehud Barak, pleaded for Clinton to pardon two individuals. The first was convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. Remember him? He remains in the federal penitentiary at Allenwood, Pennsylvania, serving a life sentence for spying for Israel. Can you imagine? If Barak had succeeded in springing Pollard, both he and Pollard would have been greeted at the Tel Aviv airport as heroes. Bubba was on the verge of doing the deal. The political and financial mileage which the act would have generated for the Democrats and for him personally made it tempting. What stopped him? The CIA and the entire U.S. intelligence community went into a revolt, and George Tenet informed Clinton that he (Tenet) would be forced to resign immediately. So Bubba backed down.
these are the words of chaim weitzman…
The Aliens Bill in England, and the movement which grew up around it were natural phenomena … Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them … The fact that the actual number of Jews in England, and even their proportion to the total population, was smaller than in other countries was irrelevant; the determining factor in this matter is not the solubility of the Jews, but the solvent power of the country … this cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off … though my views on immigration naturally were in sharp conflict with his, we discussed these problems in a quite objective and even friendly way. [9]
When you say “I mean that he has subverted the rule of law and the principle that no one is above it.” you could not be more correct. While the president does indeed have the right to pardon criminals, as you rightly point out, this view being offered up by neo-conservatives is too black and white to be applied. Because dry words mean slightly different things to different people, we’ve long distinguished between “the spirit of the law” and “the letter of the law.” A grammatical error should never be allowed to subvert the intent behind a law, and as Mr Nixon learned, a president does not have the right to fire the people investigating him and grant amnesty ( in the non-immigration sense ) to the people being investigated. That crosses the line to clear obstruction of justice.
It’s interesting that while the public story is that Bush “commuted” Mr Libby’s sentence, leaving the man on parole, a person can’t actually begin parole ( also known as supervised release from prison ) without having served at least some portion of their sentence.