Why is it when a conservative of wealth and means is tried and convicted for a crime, there's howling for understanding and clemency? While Roni Kay O'Dell's letter to the Gazette decrying the sentencing for con-man Pat Davison is admittedly the only of its kind I've seen for this particular conservative, you could substitute "Scooter Libby" for "Pat Davison" and come up with one of a bejillion pleas for a pardon for that particular convicted felon.
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned notions of being tough on crime, of personal responsibility, so often batted about on issues like drug use or welfare reform?
Or are these values that are applied only to the poor?
When Roni Kay O'Dell writes, "Are we to lock up everyone who commits nonviolent crimes on the premise that their unethical behavior merits complete exclusion from society?" do you think she means a habitual crack user?
Me, neither.
I'm not against reforming draconian drug laws. In fact, I'm all for it. As Tom Siebel rightly notes, treatment, not incarceration is the key for the scourge of drug use.
White collar crime, on the other hand, has effects just as bad as burglary, and more often worse. Davison bilked people of millions. If you'd asked the victims, they'd probably have preferred to have been robbed at gunpoint for twenty bucks or have had their DVD player nipped while they were away for a long weekend.
In any case, I'm open to discussion on sentencing guidelines for crimes. We should always be having that discussion. But I'm wholeheartedly against having different legal codes for different people based on their standing in society.
(Hat tip to Dave Crisp, who summed it up much more eloquently than me.)
So I've been writing recently on a couple legal topics and I've had some criticism off-line for handling them in a kind of off-the-cuff and half-assed manner. So I'm going to expound a bit more as a layperson. Follow me into There's Moreville if you're interested in my thoughts on Scooter Libby, wiretapping, and related matters.
...we'll let Brooks' scribble be a stand-in for what you will hear universally today from the right -- namely, that just as Scooter Libby was charged with perjury and not the underlying crime of burning an American spy, the deeper underlying offense, the lie about uranium from Africa, didn't even exist -- that at the end of the day it was revealed that Wilson's claims, which started the whole train down the tracks, were discredited as lies.
You'll even hear softer versions of this claim from mainstream media outlets not normally considered part of the rump of American conservatism.
[snip]
...the claim that Wilson's charges have been discredited, disproved or even meaningfully challenged is simply false. What he said on day one is all true. It's really as simple as that.
[snip]
No one is perfect. The key dividing line is who's telling the truth and who's lying. Wilson is on the former side, his critics the latter. Everything else is triviality.
From day one this story has been about official lies -- corrupt power buttressed by fraud. Along the way it became a story about the president's hireling commentators who lost their honor by becoming part of the fraud. What Wilson said was true. His attackers are all parties to the same lie. Don't forget that.
As you know, there are those who point to President Clinton whenever Bush is criticized. Presidential pardons are no exception. Atrios:
Inevitably, the subject of Marc Rich comes up every time presidential pardons come up. Without going into all of the issues, can we just remind the world that... Marc Rich's lawyer was Scooter Libby.
Scooter Libby's mommies and daddies made their calls and pulled their strings. Poor Libby's tum-tum was tied up in knots at the thought of having to share a bathroom with embezzlers! He couldn't be expected to survive such conditions! Scooter is delicate, he's of a superior quality, you see!
"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."
A couple of things. First, Bush didn't have the stones to pardon Libby and earn the full animus such a move would rightfully earn. Second, in essence, with this act, Bush is publicly acknowledging his and his administration's contempt for the rule of law. Third, with this move, Bush signals to those that take the bullet for him that they won't suffer.
So much for justice.
Joe Wilson is absolutely correct when he says those that abet Libby's release are "accessories to an ongoing crime." Fitzgerald made it clear that the Vice-President's office was not cleared in the investigation, and that they were still subjects of suspicion. In fact, Libby's stern sentencing was exactly because of the severity of the crime that Libby's lying and obstruction blocked.
But what should we expect from an administration that appointed to the DoJ's Civil Rights division a man who thinks minority women aren't "good Americans"?
I thought that there was more to this story when I wrote it up some time ago. Turns out, it is not that there is more to it, just more of the same from this administration. Not a week after Scooter Libby is found guilty of lying to protect the administration, we find out that Alberto Gonzales has been lying, too.
Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud
...
The president did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.
...
But Ms Perino disclosed that White House officials had consulted with the Justice Department in preparing the list of United States attorneys who would be removed.
Within a few weeks of the president's comments to the attorney general, the Justice Department forced out seven prosecutors.
Previously, the White House had said that Mr. Bush's aides approved the list of prosecutors only after it was compiled.
The role of the president and his advisers in the prosecutor shakeup is likely to intensify calls by Congress for an investigation. It is the worst crisis of Mr. Gonzales's tenure and provoked charges that the dismissals were a political purge threatening the historical independence of the Justice Department.
The idea of dismissing federal prosecutors originated in the White House more than a year earlier, White House and Justice officials said Monday.
No bueno. Bear in mind that Alberto Gonzales denied any political involvement, under oath. These folks are lying to the press in a big way. They are lying to the American people in a big way. On the heels of one perjury probe, they seem to be anxious for another.
I will try to leave the other major lies out of this, but for being an administration so brazen in values and ensconced at the foot of the Lord, they sure do lie an awful lot.
