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Thursday, July 5 

Get Out Of Jail Free

For all of you who are just howling mad about Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence, be sure to check out the list of Clinton's pardons.

Just for a frame of reference, the word cocaine appears 20 times, marijuana 12 times, false statements 12 times, perjury 3 times, and embezzlement twice.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, in that I don't care one way or the other about Libby or what Bush does or doesn't do for him. I just think a little perspective is needed.

Update: Okay, so maybe I should expand on this post. Dawn asked if comparing the two is really perspective. I think it is, only in that Clinton (Bill and Hillary) are out there attacking Bush about the pardons
"I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it," Clinton said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."
I find their accusations hilarious, considering the number of scandals the two of them have been embroiled in over the years, as well as the number of people close to them who ended up in jail. Among the list of Clinton's pardons is Roger Clinton. That is Bill's brother, for those who don't remember. You will also notice that there are no specifics about what he is being pardoned for.

Also, according to this article in the Boston Globe, Hillary's brothers are alleged to have received payment from people seeking pardons from ol' Bill before he left office.
In addition to the people who paid her brothers, those receiving pardons included commodities trader Marc Rich, a fugitive who was prosecuted for tax evasion by then-US Attorney Rudolph Giuliani and fled to Switzerland. Rich was pardoned after his former wife, Denise Rich, contributed heavily to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.
So, the wife gives Hillary a shit-load of money while she runs for the senate, and Bill magically pardons her husband. But yeah, they're right. It's the Bush's who have no respect for the law.

Much has also been made about Libby being such a high ranking member of the administration. However, he is not the highest to be indicted in recent years. In 1999 Clinton's Housing Secretary, Henry Cisneros, pled guilty to lying to the FBI "about payments to former mistress Linda Jones during background check". Cisneros received a full pardon from Clinton.

The Valerie Plame case was a witch hunt from the beginning. Richard Armitage, the number 2 guy at the state department, told Colin Powell that he was the one who leaked the name. The State Department has been at odds with Bush for years, so they kept his identity from the White House when they briefed them on the situation. If the State Department had come clean at the beginning, none of this would have been an issue. Instead we get a special prosecutor to investigate a crime that never happened, and Scooter Libby becomes the scape goat because he was a loyal foot soldier and stupid about his testimony.

The investigation should never have happened to begin with, but it did, and he lied to prosecutors. I think he should either have to serve the time, or Bush should have grown a backbone and just pardoned him. But this, like most everything Bush does, is half-assed. He takes what he thinks is the right path, but he never fully commits to it. He wants to pardon Libby, but instead of doing it, he pussies out on us and commutes his sentence. What the hell is that all about? You're the fucking President of the United States of America. You can pardon whoever the hell you want. The constitution gives you that power. Just like Clinton could and did pardon whoever he wanted, including members of his administration. But neither should try to point out how awful it is that the other did it, because ALL presidents do it. It's their right.

So that is why I think it gives perspective. It all goes back to the "let me get the beam out of my eye before trying to remove the splinter from your" philosophy. The Clintons are a master of accusing everyone else in the world of being what they are.

For the last 20 years we've not had a two party system, we've had a two family system. The has been a Bush or a Clinton on every presidential ballot since 1980, and one in the White House since 1988. I think it's about time for some fresh blood, don't you?

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Hmm. . .well, I'm not howling mad about Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence, but not sure if a list of Clinton's pardons is really giving the necessary perspective. Isn't this sort of different?

LOL... I can't even begin to comment. Suffice it to say that if the world is lucky, the end is near.

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