Libby pardon

Why should people in top government positions be allowed to get away with crimes that the rest of the American Citizens couldn't. Bush already commuted the man's 30-month prison sentence, and stated he (Bush) "respected the jury's verdict".

Government officials should be held accountable to the same laws and punishments as the rest of society. For once, Bush did the right thing. If Dick Cheney doesn't like the decision, who gives a hoot! Welcome to the same rules and regulations that are shoved down the rest of America's throat., deal with it.

Bush waited until the last minute to decide because it became a newsworthy tidbit of information and would overshadow the inauguration just a teeny bit, Bush's last hurrah as it were."

It's the only time George Bush has gained my respect. He had the chutzpah to stand up to oil-slick Cheney - for once - when he was out the door anyway. Let's face it, it probably was Cheney who compromised Plame's identity in the first place. He found a patsy to take the blame. Cheney probably promised Libby a quick pardon and it blew up in his face. No wonder he was upset. He must have realized the puppet finally cut the strings.

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday.

On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents--Jose Compeon and Ignacio Ramos--for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told Newsweek "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before he leaves office Tuesday. Another senior official, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive matters, confirmed that no more pardons would be granted.

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday.

On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents--Jose Compeon and Ignacio Ramos--for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told Newsweek "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before he leaves office Tuesday. Another senior official, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive matters, confirmed that no more pardons would be granted.

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday.

On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents--Jose Compeon and Ignacio Ramos--for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told Newsweek "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before he leaves office Tuesday. Another senior official, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive matters, confirmed that no more pardons would be granted.

Former Bush chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen kicked up a big fuss yesterday with a Washington Post Op ed slamming Obama’s executive orders by saying that if there’s another terror attack, “Americans will hold Obama responsible.”
Today Thiessen ratchets up the rhetoric a couple dozen notches in a post at National Review :

The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf, and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots. It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Obama is already “the most dangerous” President ever?

Here’s the thing about this. You have here an assertion that crosses over from mere opinion into verifiable or disprovable assertion. If you’re going to say that someone has already proven himself to be dangerous , as opposed to merely being potentially dangerous, you need to point to empirical evidence of this, such as lives lost to foreign threats on your watch. There haven’t been any such lives lost under President Obama yet, unlike other past Presidents.

That aside, whatever side of the arguments on torture and Guantanamo Bay you’re on, this is the sort of toxic rhetoric that is supposed to draw condemnation from the sort of non-partisan Beltway pundits that routinely call for “civility” and bipartisan comity in our political discourse. Yet we’re not hearing much of anything about this increasingly vitriolic attack campaign from those folks at all. And I’m not expecting too, either.