Libby's sentance commuted

[Papewaio]

Should you be able to pardon someone who committed a crime within your office while you are still in office? Surely it should be up to the next elected president at worst, and at best another branch otherwise it seems that the executive is a law unto itself... hardly a checks and balance thing is it...

It would seem a good strategy to do all the dodgy stuff in the open right at the start and pardon right at the end... not exactly justice.

[Watchman]

Americans really should kick this two-party habit. It's obviously bad for one's health.

[TevashSzat]

Americans really should kick this two-party habit. It's obviously bad for one's health.

Hmm... you are right, we ought to make it one party with ME as its leader jk

[KukriKhan]

Hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. This might be the spark that lights the fuse to the fully-loaded cannon that is the frustration and outrage of the american people.

[Lemur]

This might be the spark that lights the fuse to the fully-loaded cannon that is the frustration and outrage of the american people.

And we will do what, exactly, with that outrage? Nobody really wants an impeachment. I think everybody's resolved to riding this lame horse out, and getting somebody else in a year and a half who will (hopefully) clean up the mess.

[KukriKhan]

And we will do what, exactly, with that outrage? Nobody really wants an impeachment. I think everybody's resolved to riding this lame horse out, and getting somebody else in a year and a half who will (hopefully) clean up the mess.

Fine question.

Issuing pardons/commutations is within his pervue, with precedent leading back to the other GW (Washington) and the Whiskey Rebellion, so not impeachable. They've all done it, Whig, Democrat, Progressive and Republican, usually at the end-of-term, as "get a grip" Xiahou referenced.

We reelected this guy because we thought we needed continuity during a crisis, and the other guy, war-vet or not, didn't seem to have the intestinal fortitude to do the job.

Keeping him in office implied a level of high trust and confidence that his actions and words reflected the will of the people. "Do what you must do, within the law, to keep us safe and free." And ignorant, if you buy Tachikazi's lament.

This action, this uncharacteristic commutation of jail time for a clearly criminal offense - every bit as justified as Paris Hilton's driving unlicensed, for which the silly girl served her time - breaks that trust, that special confidence we repose in our CinC.

If Scooter gets off, so should the GI's and Marines and Air Forcemen and Sailors who've been convicted of crimes commited in the line of duty, as they understood it; an idea as antithetical to americanism as dictators, jack-booted stormtroopers and collective property ownership.

I neither endorse nor predict armed uprisings over this. I DO predict that this action will tip the balance, making the presidency even weaker than in the Carter years, rendering our word abroad laughable, and domestically automatically suspect. It will make our 20-somethings even less trusting of the perfectly good system that has evolved, and ultimately,

make us more vulnerable to attack physically (due to the inherent dithering of congress), and more vulnerable to our freedoms being thwarted, in the name of protecting us from that physical threat.

All in the name of personal loyalty.

Sorry. That's not enough for me when the fate of a country is at stake.

[Xiahou]

I think KurkiKhan is making way too much of this. As I've already covered, pardons (which this isn't) have a time-honored tradition and are entirely legal under the Constitution- for good or ill.

As a political move, it's actually a good one- which is a refreshing change from the Bush White House. He had nothing to lose by doing so, and stood to gain a little by doing it. People who hate Bush will still hate Bush- nothing is going to change that. The people who don't care about "Plamegate" still won't care- which is probably the largest group. And those that thought Libby was railroaded by Fitzgerald, will be undoubtedly pleased by this.

[PanzerJaeger]

Fine question.

Issuing pardons/commutations is within his pervue, with precedent leading back to the other GW (Washington) and the Whiskey Rebellion, so not impeachable. They've all done it, Whig, Democrat, Progressive and Republican, usually at the end-of-term, as "get a grip" Xiahou referenced.

We reelected this guy because we thought we needed continuity during a crisis, and the other guy, war-vet or not, didn't seem to have the intestinal fortitude to do the job.

Keeping him in office implied a level of high trust and confidence that his actions and words reflected the will of the people. "Do what you must do, within the law, to keep us safe and free." And ignorant, if you buy Tachikazi's lament.

This action, this uncharacteristic commutation of jail time for a clearly criminal offense - every bit as justified as Paris Hilton's driving unlicensed, for which the silly girl served her time - breaks that trust, that special confidence we repose in our CinC.

If Scooter gets off, so should the GI's and Marines and Air Forcemen and Sailors who've been convicted of crimes commited in the line of duty, as they understood it; an idea as antithetical to americanism as dictators, jack-booted stormtroopers and collective property ownership.

I neither endorse nor predict armed uprisings over this. I DO predict that this action will tip the balance, making the presidency even weaker than in the Carter years, rendering our word abroad laughable, and domestically automatically suspect. It will make our 20-somethings even less trusting of the perfectly good system that has evolved, and ultimately,

make us more vulnerable to attack physically (due to the inherent dithering of congress), and more vulnerable to our freedoms being thwarted, in the name of protecting us from that physical threat.

All in the name of personal loyalty.

Sorry. That's not enough for me when the fate of a country is at stake.

This really isn't that big of a deal man. To be honest, no one aside from the political junkies care. Watergate, this is not.

And take a deeper look at the case, this guy actually didn't deserve the jail time.

[Xiahou]

The only surprise here is that Libby's sentence was commuted instead getting an outright pardon. The outrage expressed is pretty comical though- our last president signed a stack of pardons longer than my arm (140) for his political flunkies on his last day office alone. This isn't even a pardon.

Get a grip.

[Slyspy]

The only surprise here is that Libby's sentence was commuted instead getting an outright pardon. The outrage expressed is pretty comical though- our last president signed a stack of pardons longer than my arm (140) for his political flunkies on his last day office alone. This isn't even a pardon.

Get a grip.

Surely then this highlights a weakness in the presidency itself rather than in any particular political party?

[Xiahou]

Surely then this highlights a weakness in the presidency itself rather than in any particular political party?

Tough call. Pardons are a power that was very deliberately granted to the President, as chief executive, by our founding fathers- it's not some loophole that's being exploited- it's explicitly in the Constitution.

Here's an informative article on the subject.

If they're abused, the obvious recourse would be for voters not to re-elect the president. However, that was in the time before term-limits on presidents. Now, it seems that lame duck pardons (particularly last day in office pardons) seem to have become an unseemly tradition in the White House. After all, the president doing the pardoning already knows he won't be re-elected, so there isn't much to lose.

[Tachikaze]

How does Bush get away with this stuff? Do US citizens understand who little control they have over their government? Or, should I say, how little control they want to take over their corrupt government?

I'll bet when Bush is impeached and convicted he'll pardon himself and no one will stop watching sports or reality shows long enough to notice or care.

We really might as well have a dictatorship.