Crossposted from DKos

Last week, we saw a new low from the Bush White House. It no longer matters if you risk our national security for political purposes so long as you've played enough golf with the President (by the way my opponent was rated as the Most Improved Golfer in Congress in 2005 and can brag about having the same handicap as Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay). Of course, I am speaking of the Presidential commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30 month prison sentence for lying to the FBI. This is wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin, but first let me say this - Our nation was founded on the principle that NOBODY is above the law... especially in cases where National Security is at risk. Had history been written a little differently, could ever you imagine President Washington commuting a sentence for Benedict Arnold?

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My gripe with the media coverage of the Scooter Libby case is the repeated use of the word "outing," as in the White House "outed" Valerie Plame. Let's remember what Plame did for a living. Most recently, she was at WINIPAC, the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center. They are in charge of tracking "unconventional weapons," meaning, that's right, weapons of mass destruction.

Before that she spent nearly 20 years as a Non-Official Cover agent (NOC) in Africa and the Middle East. Her job was to cultivate networks which would rat-out weapons of mass destruction before they headed to the U.S.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald used the words"national security" several times in his final report on the revelation of Plame's identity, such as: "compromising national security information is a very serious matter." In Senate committee hearings on Plame in 2005, Special Forces Colonel Patrick Lang was a bit more specific. He said blowing an agent's cover in the War on Terror meant "the possibility of knowing that they're going to carry 10-pound bags of explosive in the subway stations, will go right down the drain."

The Republican spin machine has done an excellent job of belittling Plame's job description. Because she was on the cover of Vanity Fair, she could not have been secret, goes the talking point. But that was long after her identity was revealed, and she was national news, and every bad guy in the world already knew who she was.  Duh.

"Outing" is when you tattle that someone is gay, not when you give away the work of a clandestine officer of the U.S. government. Somehow it doesn't rise to the occasion. Betrayal, anyone? Treason?

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Read 'em and weep.

White House won't rule out Libby pardon
WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility of an eventual pardon for former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby... The president thinks that he has dealt with the situation properly," [Tony Snow said]. "There is always a possibility or there's an avenue open for anybody to petition for consideration of a pardon."

Joe Wilson: Bush has "utterly subverted the rule of law and system of justice" and has role in the cover up
Joe Wilson was on the Today Show this morning -- succinct and tough. He said Bush "short-circuited our system of justice" and guaranteed that Libby will never tell the truth. Wilson knows -- and the media who were complicit in the Plame leak know -- Bush is complicit in the cover-up and obstruction.
Click through to watch the video.

MORE MORE MORE

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These criminals masquerading as honest, dedicated, elected, public officials are really good at timing things. Seems that everything they do is timed to block out or at least cast a shadow over other stories that may be.. hmmm.. lets just say, not so friendly towards them.

Does anybody remembering hearing something about some subpoenas? I vaguely remebering hearing something but it must have been the wind blowing through those damn Liberal Trees. (they lean left.. ya know?)

I know that Frank was talking about it, http://equaltimeradio.org/?p=260 but he is just a raving LIBERAL with a huge capital L. So, who do I believe? Did it really happen?

Do you remember anything about this? How does it fir with this.. "libby" thing?

http://equaltimeradio.org/?p=260

Kevin

Washington Woman


Elect Marty Campbell


StopIranWar.com       

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Dear Americans, both in Congress and outside of Congress,

What was done yesterday by George W. Bush is the final straw. His commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence is almost certainly obstruction of justice based on the the bald, self-serving aim of keeping evidence from the courts that would incriminate himself and Cheney.

This, on top of Cheney's ridiculous recent assertion that he isn't really part of the Executive branch of government (also very likely done to protect himself from having to provide evidence that would incriminate him and Bush) leaves me and many Americans nearly speechless with incredulity and rage.

And the straws before that: Pelosi and others refusing to even open impeachment investigations, despite the 2005 Downing Street Memos asserting that Bush and Blair "fixed the intelligence" around the plan to invade Iraq, the lies about weapons of mass destruction, the revelations about DOJ political firings, the US policies of torture, the illegal spying on American citizens. . . need I go on?

Yes, I will go on, to add what I can barely keep in my awareness: the hundreds of thousands of needless human deaths, and the current angling to kill more humans in Iran.

I will go further. On May 9th, Bush signed a presidential directive, viewable at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2007/05/20070509-12.html, which greatly increases Presidential powers in the case of a "national emergency", defined by (you guessed it) Bush himself. This is not generally known, as there was insufficient coverage of it in the mainstream media.

Do the American people and this 110th Congress really trust Bush and Cheney enough to let this pass?

Before this directive, in a NY Times editorial on February 19 of this year, aptly entitled "Making Martial Law Easier," The New York Times wrote: "Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the President may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or to any 'other condition.' Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new Presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate."

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