It’s official. George W. Bush is now a more loathsome, cowardly, and unethical vermin masquerading as a member of the human race than Nixon ever was.
It’s official. George W. Bush is now a more loathsome, cowardly, and unethical vermin masquerading as a member of the human race than Nixon ever was.
God help me, I still want to have a beer with him.
It’s times like this I allow myself to think of President for Life Hillary Clinton rounding these sons of bitches up and sending them to Guantanamo to be tortured until they are insane, just like Jose Padilla. I know that makes me a bad person. I just don’t fucking care.
Lesson for the day (Year? Decade?): since the Executive Branch is responsible for enforcing the laws regulating the Executive Branch, and the remedies of the purse strings and impeachment/removal are political acts of Congress, a President and Administration with sufficient lock-step, well-funded, and well-organized support in Congress, even that of a minority party (just barely in the Senate, but there we are) is effectively above the law.
Seems like a slight flaw in our system now that I think of it …
“George W. Bush is now a more loathsome, cowardly, and unethical vermin masquerading as a member of the human race than Nixon ever was.”
How much longer before he’s outranked by James Buchanan as Most Admired President.
Because he commuted Libby’s sentence?!?!? Seems a tad bit over-the-top.
BTW, FreakyBeaky the ability to pardon and commute sentences is in the Constitution so it is not so much as above the law as within the law. But never fear the Democrats have already announced hearings to look into the matter so democracy seems safe for now.
Right. Unfortunately it looks like that provision of the Constitution includes the ability to pardon and commute the sentences of those that act outside the law on the (Vice?) President’s behalf. As I said, effectively above the law, and a tad bit of a flaw in our system.
I hope we are all thrilled with the honor and dignity this crew has brought back to the white house.
If anything, I was holding back, Kevin.
If you cannot comprehend the lack of integrity and the despicable nature of this action is and if you honestly insist that an action guaranteed by the Constitution is defensible JUST BECAUSE IT IS THERE, go back to 1997 and see how noble the Republicans were with impeachment proceedings. Declaring war? Acceptable in every circumstance. Because it is in the Constitution.
What a bullshit argument.
In some sense I can understand the emotions, although I don’t share them (on either side I might add, as I wasn’t clamoring for a pardon), but I think we need to keep this in perspective. Libby didn’t get off Scot free or anything. A $250,000 fine ain’t nothing.
President Clinton never served time for his perjury dd he? Did Republicans get carried away during the impeachment proceedings? Sure. Partisans tend to do that. That doesn’t mean that this is an offense of the highest magnitude. What about Sand Berger? Where is the outrage there? (BTW, that Bill and Hillary Clinton can criticise Bush about Libby is so rich as to be laughable.)
I wasn’t arguing that Bush’s actions were right simply because they were legal or constitutional. I was just pointing out that the situation we are in is part of the law. It doesn’t make people above the law. FreakyBeaky sees that as a flaw, I think it is part of the checks and balances. If Congress want’s to impeach Bush they can. If not his term is limited and so is his power.
I think the problem is that people are investing the entire weight of the war onto this commutation. The left wanted Libby to serve as the symbol of all that is wrong with the administration and the war in Iraq. They wanted blood. Bush’s actions took away that satisfaction.
But you do realize that not everyone shares that worldview, right? That not everyone believes that Libby endangered national security and exposed a spy, etc. That some people believe that he simply was attempting to cover for his boss and got caught up in a political fight. Yes, he should have told the truth but the prosecution was bogus to begin with (Armitage was the leaker anyway). I don’t have a strong opinion on this one way or the other, and I haven’t studied all the details, but I don’t think a historical perspective will put this anywhere near the level of magnitude of which you seem to bring to it.
But given the circumstance we are unlikely to find any common ground so I will just let it go.
As Kevin says, Libby never borrowed the pot plus the pot he borrowed was broken and furthermore he returned it long ago. And hey look, Bill Clinton!
But seriously, Ed, why worse than Nixon? When I try to think about it calmly, this seems to me to be the most Nixonian thing Bush has ever done: were it not for the other horrors he and RBC have perpetrated, it would prove him equal in iniquity to Nixon, not superior.