LIbby Commutation, Liberals Sentenced for Life

Here's one more for the "now exactly why do you think the news media is leftwing?" file. At the end of her analysis of the Libby commutation, the LA Times' Janet Hook writes:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who at one recent candidate forum dodged the question of whether she believed Libby should be pardoned, made plain that Democrats would not let GOP candidates forget the issue.

"Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House's efforts to quell dissent," said Clinton, whose husband ended his presidency by granting a spate of pardons that stirred controversy.

"This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice," she said.

I'm no huge Hillary fan (way too moderate--or is that "triangulate"?--for me, plus it might be nice to have someone not a Bush or Clinton in the White House unless we're really hoping for a monarchy), but these graphs are just unfair. What does it matter what her husband did? Did she make those decisions? Either this means we're to think that Bill was just a tool for Hillary all those years or that Hillary will be a tool for Bill if she gets elected president. Neither seems likely with two such strong personalities.

Finally, as many have pointed out, Libby wasn't pardoned. Bush said, "Yeah, he's guilty, but I don't think he needs to suffer for that." And don't tell me that the fine won't come out of the $5 million raised for his defense. As for his hurt reputation, my guess is Ben Stein and Ken Starr are probably picking out an ocean-view office for him at Pepperdine about now.

Or maybe we should start a pool about how fast and where Libby will wind up. Get the date and school/think tank correct, and you win the White House's butt-smirched copy of the Constitution.

Bush the Libby-rator (Rhymes with Traitor)

So BushCo has decided to learn lessons from Ulysses S. Grant, and I don't mean President Grant and his corrupt administration. I mean Grant the general. Grant managed to do what someone like McClellan never pulled off -- never retreat. Take a whomping, lots dead, but they had massive casualties too. Attack again. Move forward. Never admit to wrongdoing, to even considering any decision could be a mistake. It makes for ugly war and ugly politics.

Kung Fu Monkey sums it up best, what the Libby commutation means (hat tip Smitty):

Our representatives -- and to a great degree we as a culture -- are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. You reveal a man's corrupt, or lying, or incompetent, and what does he do? He resigns. He attempts to escape attention, often to aid in his escape of legal pursuit. Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty ... dammmnnnn.

We are faced with utterly shameless men. Cheney and the rest are looking our representatives right in the eye and saying "You don't have the balls to take down a government. You don't have the sheer testicular fortitude to call us lying sonuvabitches when we lie, to stop us from kicking the rule of law and the Constitution in the ass. You just don't. What's beyond that abyss -- what that would do to our government and our identity as a nation -- terrifies you too much. So get the fuck out of our way."