When Bush pardons Libby , it will prove Repubs dont give a shit about perjury

[Mucho]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-libby7jun07,0,4148334.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
From the Los Angeles Times
EDITORIAL

No pardon for Libby
No matter how much his advocates argue otherwise, he committed a crime and should pay the price.

June 7, 2007

FORMER SEN. Fred D. Thompson plays a tough district attorney on "Law & Order," but he sounds like a bleeding-heart liberal when he talks about I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who has been sentenced — justly — to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. In a TV interview, Thompson said that Libby "was working himself to exhaustion, trying to protect his country, and they found some inconsistent statements that he made, allegedly." Thompson added that if he were president, he would pardon Libby.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was a federal prosecutor in real life before becoming mayor of New York City, didn't go that far. But at Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, he criticized U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton for giving Libby a "grossly excessive" sentence that "argues more in favor of a pardon."

That's wrong. A pardon would be bad politics, deep injustice and an insult to the nation. Libby was convicted of a serious crime and sentenced in accordance with federal guidelines. President Bush has no legitimate reason to disturb that sentence.

Advocates of a pardon can't deny that a jury found Libby guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So they are suggesting that his perjury is no big deal because Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald never charged anyone with disclosing the status of CIA employee Valerie Plame. At Tuesday's debate, Giuliani complained that "ultimately, there was no underlying crime involved." But as a lawyer he, like Libby, knows that the law is entitled to every man's evidence. Libby's lies prevented that.

Libby's apologists also are recycling an argument from the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, when the special prosecutor who pursued Oliver L. North was accused by defenders of the Reagan administration of "criminalizing policy differences" over Nicaragua. But Libby faces prison not because he was an architect and promoter of the war in Iraq. As a high government official, he lied to agents of that government; he did so to foil a prosecution. As he well knew, that was a crime, and one for which he deserves to go to prison.

[Michael Tee]

The supporters of law and order are somewhat selective in applying their principles.  I guess to put this thing in perspective and give poor old Scooter his due, he wasn't a Democrat and he didn't lie about a blowjob.  Two cardinal sins, the lack of which clearly makes him eligible for a full Presidential pardon.

[Plane]

The supporters of law and order are somewhat selective in applying their principles.  I guess to put this thing in perspective and give poor old Scooter his due, he wasn't a Democrat and he didn't lie about a blowjob.  Two cardinal sins, the lack of which clearly makes him eligible for a full Presidential pardon.

If he was a Democrat you would not be offended by his "crime"?

We know from the Clinton fiasco that Democrats do not give a fig about purjury , this mans real crime is being Republican.

[Plane]

If I were President I would pardon Libbey , this is an egregious miscarrage of justice and the reversal of such shames is the very reason the President has a pardon power.


But he doesn't have to , it would be much more politic to allow the perpetrators of this miscarrage of justice to stew in their shame, at this point the public is not clear about wht the accusation really was , when they learn it is a case very simular to the Martha Stewart case , but with even more uneeded punishment , public support for Scooter Libbey is going to rise.


If President Bush ignores the political expediency of allowing the situation to stand and pardons Scooter Libbey my respect for him will increase , because it will be a sacrifice on his part but for a good cause.

[Mucho]

The supporters of law and order are somewhat selective in applying their principles.  I guess to put this thing in perspective and give poor old Scooter his due, he wasn't a Democrat and he didn't lie about a blowjob.  Two cardinal sins, the lack of which clearly makes him eligible for a full Presidential pardon.

If he was a Democrat you would not be offended by his "crime"?

We know from the Clinton fiasco that Democrats do not give a fig about purjury , this mans real crime is being Republican.

I would be against any Dem that was responsible in any way for the killing of innocent people. Bill Clinton was never charged much less convicted by a jury of his peers for perjury. If he had , I would have felt badly  , put not pissed on the rule of law like you are now doing.

[BT]

No one is pissing on the rule of law, and Libby has not been pardoned. If he is so be it, if he isn't oh well.

[Michael Tee]

<<We know from the Clinton fiasco that Democrats do not give a fig about purjury , this mans real crime is being Republican.>>

What you know from the Clinton "fiasco" is that Republicans will work themselves into a lather supposedly because a guy lies about a blow-job, probably about the most inconsequential lie (as far as the general public is concerned) that one can possibly imagine.

What you know from Libby's conviction - - after a fair trial and by a unanimous jury of his peers - - is

(a)  that the Republicans don't give a shit about proven perjury to federal government investigators looking for evidence of a crime and
(b)  what a bunch of stinking hypocrites they all are.

[Mucho]

No one is pissing on the rule of law

At least oneof your Presidential candidates thinks so:
Revealing a rift in the GOP field, former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore has flatly opposed pardoning Libby, arguing that doing so would undermine public confidence in the justice system.

"If the public believes there's one law for a certain group of people in high places and another law for regular people, then you will destroy the law and destroy the system," Gilmore, a former Virginia attorney general and onetime Republican National Committee chairman, said in an interview Wednesday.

Gilmore said he respected the decision by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald to pursue the case against Libby and the guilty verdict brought by the jury. Though those views set him apart in the GOP presidential field, Gilmore said they hew closely to Republican dogma.

"Standing by the law and demanding that there be standards of conduct for everybody is conservative thinking," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-libby7jun07,0,3668934.story?coll=la-home-center

Of course he might be the last living honest Repub. But then again , maybe he is lying like the rest of you, HMMM?

[BT]

If Gilmore is elected then you have nothing to worry about.

It would be more realistic to provide us with the position of the leading candidates in reference to pardoning Libby. Bush has lalready stated he has no intentions of interfering with the process. Your hypothesis is on shaky ground.

What else is new.