Posted on 03/07/2007 3:56:09 PM PST by kabar
Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.
It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame's name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department's Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it.
With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House officials to make statements under oath and hoping some of their recollections would end up conflicting with other witness recollections, so he could charge some Republican with "perjury" and enjoy the fawning media attention.
As a result, Libby is now a convicted felon for having a faulty memory of the person who first told him that Joe Wilson was a delusional boob who lied about his wife sending him to Niger.
This makes it official: It's illegal to be Republican.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
Honestly, this ia Ann at her best and that it pointing out the BS hypocrisy in the system.
Shame on GWB's administration for the affairs de Libby and Burger.
I am sooooo f'ing fed up with his wimpy performance on law enforcement issues.
Only a comedian can come to the conclusions that Anne does. Her continued employment can only be explained by people liking skinny blondes with crazy eyes, anyone else would have been fired a long, long time ago.
The lesson that the Fitzgerald debacle teaches us is the same one that Bill Clinton learned during his presidency and Ronald Reagan learned during his: Giving a special prosecutor unlimited investigative discretion is a terrible idea. Doing that is what allowed Lawrence Walsh to continue his investigation after the obvious architect of Iran-Contra (CIA Director William Casey) was dead and refuse to wrap it up until long after Pres. Reagan had left office. It's also what allowed Ken Starr's investigation to start with Vince Foster and drag on through the Lewinsky affair.
If we're going to appoint these guys, we have to limit the scope of their investigation so that you don't end up with crap like this. Why we keep making this mistake over and over again is beyond me.
Coulter PING!
"The administration certainly could have prosecuted Sandy Berger in a way in which he would have got jailtime."
The fact that Berger is free is truly baffling. Maybe he's got something on Bush that he doesn't want revealed. It's kind of the same as Bush and the border-his actions just plain don't make sense.
As I see it, Libby's real problem is he's a bit of a ditz. Good guy, no doubt, but quite frankly if I were Cheney I'd have hired someone a bit slicker. Need someone who's cold as ice in case they are getting grilled - answers need to be factual, but minimalist, and consistent over time.
"They were dealt a total loser of a PR hand by a "News Media" that simply failed to even remotely cover this factually, plus a gutless Congressional Leadership that would rather run and hide then actually talk back to the Dems on ANYTHING."
If Fitzgerald brings up Armitage on charges, then it is a Republican hit piece. If Fitzgerald closes down the case after Armitage is found out, then the Bush Whitehouse wasted millions on a meaningless investigation. If Libby is acquitted, then it is an injustice and the guilty is set free.
Anyway, you cut this, Bush was going to take a beating. Libby being found guilty, staying out of prison till the end of next year due to appeals and Bush pardoning him was the least damaging option.
Elephants in a barrel don't shoot back. Why is that?
Alright, let's set the record straight(pun)once and for all. John Edwards is not a faggot.
He is a fop.
Correction. Answers need to be, "I don't recall".
From WND:
Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.
It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame's name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department's Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name, and Fitzgerald knew it.
With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House officials to make statements under oath and hoping some of their recollections would end up conflicting with other witness recollections, so he could charge some Republican with "perjury" and enjoy the fawning media attention.
As a result, Libby is now a convicted felon for having a faulty memory of the person who first told him that Joe Wilson was a delusional boob who lied about his wife sending him to Niger.
This makes it official: It's illegal to be Republican.
Since Teddy Kennedy walked away from a dead girl with only a wrist slap (which was knocked down to a mild talking-to, plus time served: zero), Democrats have apparently become a protected class in America, immune from criminal prosecution no matter what they do.
As a result, Democrats have run wild, accepting bribes, destroying classified information, lying under oath, molesting interns, driving under the influence, obstructing justice and engaging in sex with underage girls, among other things.
Meanwhile, conservatives of any importance constantly have to spend millions of dollars defending themselves from utterly frivolous criminal prosecutions. Everything is illegal, but only Republicans get prosecuted.
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was subjected to a three-year criminal investigation for allegedly buying prescription drugs illegally to treat chronic back pain. Despite the witch-hunt, Democrat prosecutor Barry E. Krischer never turned up a crime.
Even if he had, to quote liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz: "Generally, people who illegally buy prescription drugs are not prosecuted." Unless they're Republicans.
The vindictive prosecution of Limbaugh finally ended last year with a plea bargain in which Limbaugh did not admit guilt. Gosh, don't you feel safer now? I know I do.
In another prescription drug case with a different result, last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (Democrat), apparently high as a kite on prescription drugs, crashed a car on Capitol Hill at 3 a.m. That's abuse of prescription drugs plus a DUI offense. Result: no charges whatsoever and one day of press on Fox News Channel.
I suppose one could argue those were different jurisdictions. How about the same jurisdiction?
In 2006, Democrat and major Clinton contributor Jeffrey Epstein was nabbed in Palm Beach in a massive police investigation into his hiring of local underage schoolgirls for sex, which I'm told used to be a violation of some kind of statute in the Palm Beach area.
The police presented Limbaugh prosecutor Krischer with boatloads of evidence, including the videotaped statements of five of Epstein's alleged victims, the procurer of the girls for Epstein and 16 other witnesses.
But the same prosecutor who spent three years maniacally investigating Limbaugh's alleged misuse of back-pain pills refused to bring statutory rape charges against a Clinton contributor. Enraging the police, who had spent months on the investigation, Krischer let Epstein off after a few hours on a single count of solicitation of prostitution. The Clinton supporter walked, and his victims were branded as whores.
The Republican former House Whip Tom DeLay is currently under indictment for a minor campaign-finance violation. Democratic prosecutor Ronnie Earle had to empanel six grand juries before he could find one to indict DeLay on these pathetic charges – and this is in Austin, Texas (the Upper West Side with better-looking people).
That final grand jury was so eager to indict DeLay that it indicted him on one charge that was not even a crime – and which has since been tossed out by the courts.
After winning his primary despite the indictment, DeLay decided to withdraw from the race rather than campaign under a cloud of suspicion, and Republicans lost one of their strongest champions in Congress.
Compare DeLay's case with that of Rep. William "The Refrigerator" Jefferson, Democrat. Two years ago, an FBI investigation caught Jefferson on videotape taking $100,000 in bribe money. When the FBI searched Jefferson's house, they found $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer. Two people have already pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson the bribe money.
Two years later, Bush's Justice Department still has taken no action against Jefferson. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently put Rep. William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, engaged in a complicated land swindle, buying a parcel of land for $400,000 and selling it for over $1 million a few years later. (At least it wasn't cattle futures!)
Reid also received more than four times as much money from Jack Abramoff (nearly $70,000) as Tom DeLay ($15,000). DeLay returned the money; Reid refuses to do so. Why should he? He's a Democrat.
Former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger literally received a sentence of community service for stuffing classified national security documents in his pants and then destroying them – big, fat federal felonies.
But Scooter Libby is facing real prison time for forgetting who told him about some bozo's wife.
Bill Clinton was not even prosecuted for obstruction of justice offenses so egregious that the entire Supreme Court staged a historic boycott of his State of the Union address in 2000.
By contrast, Linda Tripp, whose only mistake was befriending the office hosebag and then declining to perjure herself, spent millions on lawyers to defend a harassment prosecution based on far-fetched interpretations of state wiretapping laws.
Liberal law professors currently warning about the "high price" of pursuing terrorists under the Patriot Act had nothing but blood lust for Tripp one year after Clinton was impeached (Steven Lubet, "Linda Tripp Deserves to be Prosecuted," New York Times, Aug. 25, 1999).
Criminal prosecution is a surrogate for political warfare, but in this war, Republicans are gutless appeasers.
Bush has got to pardon Libby.
We are all under the illusion that if we keep shouting, "HEY REPUBLICANS! STOP APPEASING THE LIBERALS AND STAND UP FOR YOUR SELVES" that they may listen and grow spines.
You really should be kicked head over tail off FR. Actually, it's long overdue.
Yup, she's a real problem for conservatives all right.
Over here.
Reading this just makes my blood boil! Some of these b*st*rds should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail!
"If we are in a real war then places like Fallujah, Mosul, Najaf, etc should be encircled and starved to death. When the women and children come out for food and water then feed them and take to safety. When those cities are emptied of women and children and only "fighters" remain, then bomb the rat holes into rubble and send those low lifes to their virgins. But no, that would be real warfare, the kind designed to win and save U.S. lives. But this Administration isn't interested in "winning", he wants to see a peaceful, friendly, islamic version of 'democracy' installed there, that will spread like butterflies being released from a jar throughout all the islamic Kingdoms and dictatorships in the region. Bush will be like the Messiah that sets the whole islamic world free from tyranny."
I fully agree with you that the rules of engagement need to be changed to allow us to fight a "total war" as was done by, my apologies to Southern Americans, Gen William T. Sherman during the Civil War. He said, "War is cruelty, the crueler it is, the sooner it we be over." Sadly, I don't believe it is possible to make this Mideastern nations love us, but we can certainly make them fear and dread us. We should do so, but that decision has to be made from the CINC.
However, I do not believe you have fairly cast President Bush as a messiah wannabe. I think he is a nobler person than that. So, I respectfully take exception with your bashing the president personally - stick to policy errors.
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