Scooter Libby's Sentence Commuted(pardoned)

[disarray]

Actually, Richard Armitage is the person who leaked Valerie Plame's identity and the prosecutor knew that after he got started on his investigation. This whole ordeal was to take down someone in the Bush administration. Fitzgerald KNEW the identify of the leaker (not Libby) and continues the investigation. Libby was charged with perjury because he recalled an incident differently than a reporter did. So, of course, he was lying. 30 months for perjury is way over the top and why the President commuted that piece of the sentence. He is still a convicted felon, still has to pay $250K in fines, etc.

Meanwhile, Sany Berger, Bill Clinton's former National Security Advisor, gets caught stealing classfied documents out of the national archives and gets a $50K fine and no jail time.

Politics is fucking great, isn't it?

[disarray]

lhrulz2007 said:

Only 567 Days left.

His approval numbers are so low he can do whatever he wants and his numbers won't get much lower.

His numbers are not as low as the Democratic led congress. They are at about 14% approval.

Just sayin'....

[disarray]

In case any of you guys are interested, here is the list of pardon's Bill Clinton made at the end of his term: www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clintonpardon_grants.htm

Also, commuting his prison sentence and pardoning him are 2 totally different things. Libby is still a convicted felon waiting for his appeal.

[gogonutz]

I don't wanna get caught up in all of this, cause I just don't know enough about it (and frankly I can't say I care too much, since it doesn't really influences anything for me) but why is it that you guys start to compare the one president with the other, or the one political party with the other. If the one makes a mistake, doesn't mean the other one was right, or better. They can easily both make mistakes. I mean, Clinton did a lot of questionable things, and Bush as well. Clinton had a better PR team and he himself was just way better in presenting himself than Bush. Doesn't mean his mistakes are bigger or smaller. Each mistake stands on its own.

I could start giving my personal preferences between the two, but I don't see why. I don't care. It's never right. The problem with a 'leader' of a nation is that there's just so many things you can do and so many things you should do. If you took things like this on a way smaller level, things could be considered normal or even polite, while as the head of a nation decisions have way more complications. And out of every 10 decisions you make as head of a nation, at least 8 are gonna be called mistakes by at least one group of people. It's just not possible to make decisions that everyone agrees on. (I wish it was, but dreams will always be dreams)

I'm not trying to say that this is an excuse for the mistakes they make (and I'm not talking about these particular cases either), I'm just saying that each case stands on its own and that if one (as head of a nation) would take the opposite decision, someone else would've come with a reason why that would be the completely wrong thing to do.

[disarray]

gogonutz said:

I don't wanna get caught up in all of this, cause I just don't know enough about it (and frankly I can't say I care too much, since it doesn't really influences anything for me) but why is it that you guys start to compare the one president with the other, or the one political party with the other. If the one makes a mistake, doesn't mean the other one was right, or better. They can easily both make mistakes. I mean, Clinton did a lot of questionable things, and Bush as well. Clinton had a better PR team and he himself was just way better in presenting himself than Bush. Doesn't mean his mistakes are bigger or smaller. Each mistake stands on its own.

I could start giving my personal preferences between the two, but I don't see why. I don't care. It's never right. The problem with a 'leader' of a nation is that there's just so many things you can do and so many things you should do. If you took things like this on a way smaller level, things could be considered normal or even polite, while as the head of a nation decisions have way more complications. And out of every 10 decisions you make as head of a nation, at least 8 are gonna be called mistakes by at least one group of people. It's just not possible to make decisions that everyone agrees on. (I wish it was, but dreams will always be dreams)

I'm not trying to say that this is an excuse for the mistakes they make (and I'm not talking about these particular cases either), I'm just saying that each case stands on its own and that if one (as head of a nation) would take the opposite decision, someone else would've come with a reason why that would be the completely wrong thing to do.

I agree with you. Wrong = wrong, but I only see the outrage when Bush does something. If you are going to be pissed about a President issuing a pardon, then you better be pissed when the guy in your camp does it too. You'll NEVER see Keith Olberman rip a democrat for the SAME behavior. Won't happen. Olberman is a committed liberal pretending to be a fair journalist and he is NOT.

i'm not a big fan of Bush, but the hatred of him and the misinformation flowing is over the top.

Libby was NOT pardoned. His prison sentence was commuted because it was the right thing to do. If you truly know the facts of this case and understand it, then you know 30 months in prison is ridiculous!

[lhrulz2007]

Only outrage when Bush does something? Clinton got fucking impeached. Clinton did some pardoning at the end of his administration, just like every President does, and some of those were bad decisions, but he didn't pardon anyone that he ordered to commit the crime. Anyone who actually followed this investigation knows that Armitage was only one of the leakers. The only reason he knew about is that the information was passed from the CIA to the State Department to the Vice Presidents office and Armitage just happened to be the one in the State Department who handled it. It's clear that Cheney and Libby were trying to push this story to the press as well to defame Joe Wilison by exposing his wife.

30 months for Perjury and Obstruction of Justice is not an excessive sentence, but is below average for those crimes. It's a slap in the face of the jury and the judge to commute this sentence and insulting to the entire system of justice this country was founded on. I'm sure there are lots of people sitting in prision wishing that their sentences would be commuted cause they think it was excessive. Why Does Scooter Libby deserve a different standard of Justice because he is the Presidents friend? You know damn well that Scooter Libby will eventually be pardoned.

Congress approval would go up if they impeached Bush, so I think that low number is just show dissatisfaction with the fact that nothing is getting done, because the Republican minority and the Bush veto are blocking many things.

I love how Republicans can act like they are so persecuted, when they control the Presidency, the courts, and even you're own damn network. Guess what the media isn't really liberal. In 2000 the coverage of Gore was way more negative that the coverage of Bush. For nearly the entire first 5 years of the Bush presidency he was treated, so kindly by the media that he was able to start an uneccesary war that distracted from the real goal of fighting the Islamic extremist threat and was treated as if he wasn't really responsible for what was done in his own administration. In 2004 the Swift Boat guys were given so much coverage as if they were ligitimate for nearly a month, when it was clear that they were just bitter Republicans. Stop acting like Republicans have it so much harder, when if they'd stop doing so much incompetent shit they'd find it much easier.

[gogonutz]

I understand this is close to you guys, but try to keep the discussion nice. So far it didn't really get out of hand, I hope we can keep it that way

[disarray]

lhrulz2007 said:

Only outrage when Bush does something? Clinton got fucking impeached. Clinton did some pardoning at the end of his administration, just like every President does, and some of those were bad decisions, but he didn't pardon anyone that he ordered to commit the crime. Anyone who actually followed this investigation knows that Armitage was only one of the leakers. The only reason he knew about is that the information was passed from the CIA to the State Department to the Vice Presidents office and Armitage just happened to be the one in the State Department who handled it. It's clear that Cheney and Libby were trying to push this story to the press as well to defame Joe Wilison by exposing his wife.

30 months for Perjury and Obstruction of Justice is not an excessive sentence, but is below average for those crimes. It's a slap in the face of the jury and the judge to commute this sentence and insulting to the entire system of justice this country was founded on. I'm sure there are lots of people sitting in prision wishing that their sentences would be commuted cause they think it was excessive. Why Does Scooter Libby deserve a different standard of Justice because he is the Presidents friend? You know damn well that Scooter Libby will eventually be pardoned.

Congress approval would go up if they impeached Bush, so I think that low number is just show dissatisfaction with the fact that nothing is getting done, because the Republican minority and the Bush veto are blocking many things.

I love how Republicans can act like they are so persecuted, when they control the Presidency, the courts, and even you're own damn network. Guess what the media isn't really liberal. In 2000 the coverage of Gore was way more negative that the coverage of Bush. For nearly the entire first 5 years of the Bush presidency he was treated, so kindly by the media that he was able to start an uneccesary war that distracted from the real goal of fighting the Islamic extremist threat and was treated as if he wasn't really responsible for what was done in his own administration. In 2004 the Swift Boat guys were given so much coverage as if they were ligitimate for nearly a month, when it was clear that they were just bitter Republicans. Stop acting like Republicans have it so much harder, when if they'd stop doing so much incompetent shit they'd find it much easier.

I'm not a Republican. I just care about the truth. The media is liberal and study after study has proven that. Sorry.

Can you show some evidence that President Bush ordered Libby to commit a crime? You're losing credibility with that statement, dude. You can't state something like that as fact when there is NOTHING to support it.

On another note, I think the impeachment of Clinton was over the top. However, he did lie under oath and probably should have gone to jail too.

question for you though, if leaking the name of Valerie Plame was the crime, why wasn't Armitage put on trial?

Do you have any thoughts on Sandy Berger stealing classified documents from the National Archives?

[disarray]

gogonutz said:

I understand this is close to you guys, but try to keep the discussion nice. So far it didn't really get out of hand, I hope we can keep it that way

No worries... debating politics these days is like beating a dead horse. I've said all I really care to say about it.