Bush commutes Libby's sentence in exchange for his silence and Libby gets zero jail time for his role in a treasonous conspiracy to undermine US national security.  Not that there hasn't been plenty of proof before but this administration has no shame.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak_trial

Do you only read one way news?

in liberal schools. Indeed, the libs have adopted their own legal theory and that is once you find someone you hate, you get to make up whatever you need to in order to get rid of them. It's based on their supreme knowledge that the world will be a better palce only if they are in charge...

All that notwithstanding, Cheney's just a bit too much hink around him for my liking.



-- Modified on 7/2/2007 5:35:07 PM

I wonder if your fellow right leaning Republicans will continue to crow about Clintons pardon of Mark Rich.

For all intents and purposes, this does the same thing.

They get away with it.

They have no shame. And for you and others like-minded to your political perspective to continue to be supportive of these heinous people's contemptuous activities astounds me in the extreme.
As such, I see no point in attempting dialog.

Since they have obviously not Dazzled you with Brilliance, it stands to reason that they have completely baffled you with their Bullshit.

The Game is Over. The Bad Guys Won. I'm moving to WhoCaresLand.

I am still in awe as to what happened.  How can the man justify pardoning someone who outs a CIA operative?  Surely he knows what kind of fallout this has to produce.  Maybe with him being a lame dick...ooops...duck, he does not care about the fallout.

Gosh BK, it almost sounds like something I might agree with..... if I knew what the heck you said

Doc sit back take a puff and think of what you wrote... Comparing Libby to Mark Rich seems quite the stretch to me.. The fact is Libby was not pardoned.. The fact is Libby is a convicted Felon. The fact is Libby still must do his probation and pay a two hundred fifty thousand dollar fine... It didn't bother me  that Libby got excessive jail time for the crime he was convicted of but the fact the Judge would not let him stay free under appeal..Was the judge worried Libby was a flight risk?? I wager Bush did not like that fact either ..So for that reason I am with Bush scoffing at the  Judge. So Doc if you want to mope away and not debate that is your choice not mine. I will just wallow in the winners circle.

A hink could be a hunter who drinks before the hunt

OVER THE TOP, LOL

the "CIA LEAK TRIAL", should be all the explanation one needs to forever disregard anything written by Ben Feller.

who does'nt use his clout to go down to said firms office and lay down the riot act, imploring to said firm as to the utmost importance of victory in an upcoming mission in which said contractor will both play a role and stand to profit handsomely however misdeeds by said corp will undermine the all important credibilty of former CEO and new boss.

IOW, I fault the dickster for giving the haliburton kinnard/debacle/distraction to those who were looking for reasons to undermine the bush admin. he should have been out front and open, i know i damn well would have been if i was in his shoes

Yeah, I am sure Libby is really going to be hurting.  He will make talk show appearances, write a book, get a job (if he wants) with the people who put up millions for his legal defense (which will likely pay for his fine).  Oh...and is he hurting for money right now?  

Please.  Perspective, please.

Not necessarily.

It's standard journalistic practice that the author of a news piece usually does not write the headline to the article.  That is usually composed by his editorial superiors.  This may be the case here.

From the link, it looks as it the offending phrase "CIA Leak Trial" is not integral to what Feller reported, but was used as a heading, however clumsily, to direct interested readers to additional linked stories re Libby/Palme trail.

and I am moving to WhoCaresLand.

And if your idea of wallowing in the winners circle is applauding the commutation of a convicted government official sliding out of deserved jail time, you must be surrounded by fellow right wing Republicans who don't really have much else to be proud of these days.

Certainly the 2008 elections will validate a complete repudiation of the Bush Administration, and most likely the GOP as a majority party.

Hopefully, the emergence of a legitimate and substantial "Third" Party (Nader doesn't count) will bring something new and fresh to the table.

Something has to change. The current path is inevitably a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of the American Empire".

But I will be living in WhoCaresLand by then, so it won't make a difference to me anyway.

I condemn the entire AP.

It wasn't just one judge who rules that way. the trial jduge turned hoim down and today a panel of three appeals court judges rule the same way.  BTW, jsut because Bush hasn't pardoned Libby yet doesn't mean he won't.

I'm curious how you'll judge Fox News which called it the "CIA leak case."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287780,00.html

it was indeed all part of a CIA leak CASE. But Libby's TRIAL had NOTHING to do with LEAKING.

they were QUOTING an AP story...LOL

Remember Saddam Hussein?

First, Bush got everyone to hate him.
Then, he made up some story about WMD's.
Then, he made up some story about freeing Iraq.
Then, whatever, I lost track of all the bullcrap stories.

In the end, Bush got him hanged because he was a bad man.

And wasn't it Bush who said something along the lines of dictatorships are bad unless he's the one in charge?

-

-- Modified on 7/2/2007 10:14:02 PM

In this country, a lot of people (liberals as well as conservatives) have adopted an "us versus them" attitude. Instead of doing what's best for the country, it's turned into a game of "who can stick the knife deeper into the opposing side".

Even when the person on your side does something totally repugnant, it's celebrated because it goes against what the opposing side wants.

Hey Doc, move over, I'm moving to WhoCaresLand too.

Somehow, I doubt it.

oh come on... you didn't really think I was serious, did you?
One of my biggest issues of contempt for American society as a whole, and one which invites the ridicule of the world, is our upside down sense of values.
Starting with Paris Hilton's relevance to world issues. She has none, but gets front page headlines for being seen on a surfboard in Santa Monica.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?????

The dumbing down of America. We have noone to blame but ourselves, and don't you DARE pin this on either the liberals, or the conservatives. We as a nation, have failed ourselves.

But I'll soon be in WhoCaresLand... so what's the fucking difference?

Well, let's review the facts of this case.  At least three members of the Bush administration revealed the identify of a covert CIA agent in vioaltion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and in the process exposed Brewster Jennings as a CIA front company allowing foreign governments to back track and identify sources that the US had developed, and the net effect gave aid and comfort to our enemies, which is the definition of treason in the Constitution.  Or does the Constituion not apply when it comes to Repulican scandals?

this way, no one has to take my word for it, it is plain to see.

Big Lie Democrats
By Brandon Crocker
Published 11/17/2005 12:07:13 AM
When Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, he was convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and active WMD research and production programs. George Tenet, the Clinton appointed head of the CIA, told George W. Bush prior to the war that the case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk." Almost all of the Democratic members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, seeing much of the same intelligence reports given to the White House, and with direct access to the intelligence communities and raw intelligence data, agreed. The intelligence arms of most major foreign governments, including those that opposed the war, agreed. The UN concurred that Saddam had not accounted for stockpiles of WMD that were known to exist after the end of the first Gulf War. So, according to the U.S. Democratic leadership, there is only one logical conclusion that one can draw from the lack of WMD found in Iraq -- George W. Bush lied us into the war.

This has been the mantra of leading Democrats since the Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, pulled his stunt to force the Senate into "closed session" as a "protest" over the supposed foot-dragging of Senate Republicans in the "Phase II" investigation looking into the matter. ("Phase I," which looked into allegations that the administration pressured the U.S. intelligence community to "cook" the intelligence to support the war, concluded, without a single Democrat dissent, that no such pressure took place). And now, to complete the farce, Senator John Kerry, during a press conference on November 14, proclaimed "the war in Iraq was and remains one of the great acts of misleading and deception in American history."

Senator Kerry, one might recall, built his political career on his status as a "war hero" in Vietnam, due to the fact that he amazingly, in four months time, was awarded three purple hearts (giving him a free ticket home), for wounds that, upon further scrutiny, appear, well, hyped. His most serious wound seems to have been unintentionally self-inflicted, and the first, of unknown origin, required treatment with a dab of Neosporin ointment. Upon returning home he made a name for himself by accusing U.S. soldiers of routinely committing atrocities, which he now admits he never actually saw, and which may not have been true. And then, of course, there is his famous story of his Christmas incursion into Cambodia, "seared" into his memory, strangely seared, since it, too, never happened. And during his presidential campaign he gave the distinct impression that he had met with "foreign leaders" who endorsed his candidacy, "negotiated treaties" while serving as a senator, and had been a much better college student than the idiot George W. Bush -- all of which turned out to be untrue.

Senator Kerry is, in fact, the Great Deceiver. So it is fitting that he has now taken up the Democratic crusade against George W. Bush, accusing him of lying to the Senate and to the American people on the basis of, well, let's be honest, next to no evidence, and in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

So far, the heart of the Democratic case seems to be one CIA document, declassified with great fanfare by Senator Carl Levin, which questions the credibility of one source regarding one issue (the training of al-Qaeda personnel in Iraq). But it is not clear that Bush was ever given this particular document, or that members of the Senate or House Intelligence Committees did not have access to it. What is clear, however, is that the CIA had other sources that corroborated the story, and CIA chief George Tenet felt that the overall evidence supported the story, regardless of the credibility issues of one source. It is certainly ironic that this cherry-picked document, in the Democrats' eyes, qualifies as damning evidence that Bush "cherry picked" intelligence to "mislead" the country into war.

It is also fitting, and ironic, that the Democratic leadership, which has used language comparing the actions of U.S. military personnel with that of Nazis (as in Senator Dick Durbin's infamous speech on the floor of the Senate, broadcast throughout the Middle East via al-Jazeera, for which he eventually felt compelled to apologize), now seems so adept at employing the propaganda strategy described by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels as "the Big Lie." Unfortunately, this Big Lie has been working (with the "mainstream" news media reporting the Democrats' daily accusations, with barely a mention of inconvenient facts to the contrary), and a majority of Americans now say that they believe that George W. Bush intentionally lied about Saddam's WMD programs in order to push an "unnecessary war." But as any watcher of public opinion polls knows, these sentiments can change.

Despite the often-repeated line in the media, that with no significant WMD finds in Iraq that "the primary rationale for the war" has been "discredited," whether or not WMD are ever found in Iraq is, in fact, irrelevant to the legitimacy for this "rationale" for the war. The rationale was (among other things) that we had good reason to suspect that Saddam possessed WMD and/or had advanced and on-going programs for their creation. Saddam gave us no reason to doubt this, refusing to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors (in violation of the cease-fire agreement from the first Gulf War), and actually kicking them out of the country in 1998 (prompting Bill Clinton to send a few cruise missiles into suspected Iraqi WMD targets). So the rationale that it was likely that Saddam had WMD programs -- which was the primary basis for Bill Clinton making "regime change" in Iraq official U.S. policy -- was perfectly sound, and remains perfectly sound rationale for having gone to war. But none of this matters in the new Democratic political calculus, and the big question is, why not?

The reason that the Democratic leadership seems intent on aggressively pushing a transparently false charge against the President of the United States is that it sees political advantage in doing so. It is what the Michael Mooron base of the party desires, and with the American public showing weariness of the war and of hearing the casualty figures reported daily in the media, the time is ripe, they calculate, to hammer Bush on the war. The only problem is, much of the Democratic leadership supported going to war. That dilemma is solved, in their mind, by pushing the argument that they were "misled" by Bush into doing so. This may turn out to be a bit uncomfortable for the Democrats' probable 2008 presidential candidate -- Hilary Clinton -- who is already on record as admitting that the intelligence used by the Bush administration was consistent with the intelligence assessments during the Bill Clinton presidency. But the Democrats will cross that bridge when they come to it. In the meantime, it is the Democratic priority to discredit the U.S. Commander in Chief, in time of war, simply because he's a Republican.

History will, most probably, correct the current misperceptions regarding Bush "lying us into war." And, most probably, history will eventually render an unflattering judgment on the Democratic leadership's current behavior. But that will be small comfort if the Democrats manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. Fortunately, Bush seems to have awoken to the fact that he can't continue simply to shrug off Democratic attacks and will, with the Republicans in Congress, aggressively respond to the Democrats' smear campaign.

Brandon Crocker is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator on-line living in San Diego.

cause that is what it sounds like!  While I don't support the concept of fighting a war which, in essence, is another countries civil war, I do agree that Saddam is a bad, very bad dude.  Were we justified in going into Iraq.... in hind sight no, we were not.

but it does not help that the French and Germans were trading with SH... and were really doing a number on the efforts to solve the issues of WMD prior to the invasion.  GHWBush did not go to Bagdad for a reason...  Saddam, whatever faults he has, was a useful tool for keeping the region somewhat stabilized.  

For those that think that all this is a black and white issue, I would suggest that you return to the era of B&W TV sets when the world was a little more B&W - us against them (them of course being the soviet Union).  Now - it is more complicated.  

Imagine for a moment, that Pakistan goes radical muslim.  Who would they most wish harm.  and would radical muslims really feel that compasion and the power of persuasion would get them what they want.... or would they just want to watch an atom bomb go off... and pretend that it is the "Hand of God"!???  

Back in the day.... at least we knew that the leaders of the old soviet union were somewhat rational men....   While they wished to defeat the US, they wished to do it on a habitable planet.  Muslims?  the radical variety?, they believe that Armageddon is a good thing (either manmade or not!) and if you happen to bring it about?  well, you would be truly blessed.  

I personally don't want war with these people...
but I personally don't wish to live in a society that they create... (I like to hobby too much).

Now let's switch gears... with Korea, Venezuala and of course our "good neighbors" to the South... Mexico....   Well, we live in a very, very dangerous time...

As for Al, the inventor, Gore.... if he is truly worried about global warming... then maybe we should curb nuclear proliferation... as a way to stop a melt down....  

these are just random thoughts.... before anyone jumps down my throat for not organizing them... or making them spoon feedable.  sorry, brain not working that way today.

Scooter (and IMHO any grown man who goes by the name Scooter is a dunce) Libby was still found guilty of four felony counts of lying under oath and obstruction of justice - NOT TREASON - and that finding still stands unlike under a pardon.  but hey, according to libs... lying under oath... hey that ain't nuttin!  Just ask BC!  

If Libby appeals and is found innocent...?  my understanding is that is probably what he will do - appeal.  but hey....  a pardon has NEVER occured... oh, but hey.... I was wrong about that... the stats of pardons are in the link.

-- Modified on 7/3/2007 11:16:05 AM

Compare to the DOJ statistics

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/actions_fiscal.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/actions_administration.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/recipients.htm

We can then compare GW Bush's lists to these.

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clintonpardon_grants.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clinton_comm.htm

Who knows, by 2009, Rove may be on the petition list... you wish.

Don't forget good ol'Roger Clinton.

What good is having a brother as POTUS if he can't get you off a couple of drug felonies?

It actually could have been, had she not been a selfabsorbed cunt.

the night baca kicked her, he cited overcrowding and how the mentally ill are treated "by the system"

it could have been an oppurtunity to turn that attention onto something of substance but alas, the bitch is all about herself...

what's new?

Where would you guys be without Clinton?  Still there's major difference between the Clinton and Libby cases: Libby was tried and convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.  No jury ever found Clinton guilty of perjury. In fact, Starr's case was so weak it never even went to a trial.

you're not the first person to point that out.
and the media share the blame.

but he was impeached for the same stuff... perjury and obstruction of justice.  And lets just be honest.... he lied.

This is so typical. You can't even come up with your own original response. You just bleat out what other people say.

As for your quoted article, lots of hot air and not a whole lot of source information.

eom