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I have read a lot of the reactions about Bush commuting Scooter Libby and saving Scooter from jail. iPol has posted the statements from the Democratic candidates for president. Here is the condensed version of what each candidate said (plus a couple others)...
Dodd hits the nail on the head...
The only ones paying the price for this Administration's actions are the American people.Edwards has perhaps the best one line that I have read so far...
Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today.Clinton shows how this another example of Republican cronyism...
This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice.Obama ties this into his campaign theme...
This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people's faith in a government that puts the country's progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent yearsBiden calls for Americans to take action...
It is time for the American people to be heard.Richardson ties this in with all of the other scandals and shows this is a pattern...
I call for all Americans to flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow expressing their outrage over this blatant disregard for the rule of law.
This administration clearly believes its officials are above the law, from ignoring FISA laws when eavesdropping on US citizens, to the abuse of classified material, to ignoring the Geneva Conventions and international law with secret prisons and torturing prisoners.Even though he is not a candidate I thought this was a great statement by John Kerry...
President Bush's eleventh hour commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence makes a mockery of the justice system and betrays the idea that all Americans are expected to be held accountable for their actions, even close friends of Vice President Cheney.And Paul Begala gives some historical perspective...
It's a tragedy that with young Americans paying the ultimate price in Iraq for this administration's mistakes, this White House continues to avoid accountability and reward deceit for their friends and supporters.
Tough enough to execute Karla Fay Tucker -- and then laugh about it. Tough enough to sign a death warrant for a man whose lawyer slept through the trial -- and then snicker when asked about it in a debate. Even tough enough to execute a great-grandmother who murdered her husband -- after he abused her. A friend of mine at the time asked Bush to commute her sentence, telling him, "Betty Lou ain't a threat to no one she ain't married to." No dice.Mr. Bush is tough enough to invade a country that was no risk to America, causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and shedding precious American blood in the process. Tough enough to sanction torture. Tough enough to order an American citizen arrested and held without trial.
But if you're rich and right-wing and Republican, George is a real softie. As George W. Bush demonstrated in giving Scooter Libby a Get Out of Jail Free Card, he is only compassionate to conservatives.
What does it say about America in the age of Bush when Judith Miller spends more time in jail over the Valerie Plame smear than Scooter Libby?
1 comment:
As a former prosecutor with the Department of Justice, what infuriates me the most about this travesity isn't such much that President Bush did it but the reason he gave. To President Bush a sentence reached under the United States Sentencing Guidelines is "excessive". Perhaps the President is unaware that the Department of Justice has spent literally millions of dollars litigating the sentencing guidelines, and the Federal Government has spent billions more drafting the guidelines in the first place. Perhaps the PResident doesn't care that hundreds of career prosecutors have to armor up and appear in court every day arguing to a often dubious judge that the federal sentencing guidelines MUST be applied when sentencing criminals, even if those same prosecutors don't personally believe the sentencing guidelines are necessarily the "correct" sentence. If the President thinks the guideline sentence is so "excessive" why hasn't he undertaken to change the guideline or abandoned the guideline sentencing system entirely?
Under the Constitution the president can commute any sentence he wants for no reason at all. As with the Attorney General firings, the Bush White House would have been far better served by just saying "because I felt like it, and I can." Instead of draw purely political heat for doing what he wanted, the President has concocted a shoddy half-excuse that doesn't fool anyone and just tarnishes the hard work of legitimate governmental employees.
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