Loyalty is a Vice

Back in the Brownie and Harriet Miers days, I questioned whether loyalty to friends and cronies was the worst of George W. Bush's "virtues".

Now, with his statement yesterday, Mr. Bush -- never known to coddle criminals or consider even the most excessive sentence "excessive" -- shows that loyalty is now a vice, maybe Dubya's key vice.

I respect the jury's verdict. 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.
[...]The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

--G.W. Bush (from whitehouse.gov, 2 July 2007)

The simplistic code of loyalty that drives him can be seen on every level. He knows his family is nice, and good. He knows his friends are nice, and good. He knows his America is nice, and good, and blessed by God. If he doesn't know you? Watch out. You may very well be mean, and evil. And it may be his duty to ignore your pleas for gubernatorial clemency from death row. It may be his Presidential duty to lock you up on a island prison camp with no recourse to the American legal system, or to bomb you and your family and your godforsaken desert home.

I have nothing against Lewis Libby. He's a stooge. He was only following Dick Cheney's orders, and of course George knows that. But don't commute Lewis Libby's sentence unless you're willing to throw the real criminals behind bars, or until you're willing to give the same compassionate consideration to the MILLIONS of Americans who are behind bars -- many with longer sentences for lesser crimes than Scooter's.

Until further notice (or indictment), the phrase "Senior White House Advisor" should be globally replaced with the words "Karl Rove"

from The Washington Post, "Trial Could Pit Libby's Interests Against Bush's":

"A senior White House adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said the Bush team believes it dodged a bullet when Fitzgerald charged only Libby on Friday and then pointedly said in his news conference that the indictment should not be read as a condemnation of the war or its run-up."

Just once I'd love to see a sentence start with these words in the Post or the Times: "Karl Rove, speaking on the assumption that we would respect our 'promise' to protect his anonymity, ..." Is there ever anything that any anonymous senior advisors in any Administration (Republican or Democratic) reveals anonymously to their embedded media partners that isn't either a) a self-serving lie, or b) self-serving spin?

Just asking.
True Blue Liberal

crossposted from http://whiggate.org/

WHIG of the Week -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney and the First Indicted WHIG on this First Day of Fitzmas

On the first day of Fitzmas, the grand jury gave to us ...
one Scooter on crutches (why did Dick hobble him with a lead pipe?)

Isn't it bad enough that he was named after Phil Rizzuto and that this is his view in the mirror every morning, and then he has to make daily genuflections to the man who makes Mike Myers' fictional Dr. Evil look like Mother Teresa? If it weren't for the whole illegal invasion of Iraq thing, you might almost feel sorry for him.

Who's next?