Why hasn’t Bush pardoned Libby?
Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt his chances at reelection … oh, wait … never mind.
because he is George the Wuss (GW)
Every day that passes without a pardon is just one more reason I’ll never send a dollar to the GOP.
I think it’s because that he is hoping that by not pardoning Libby it will provide some kind of “closure” on the whole stupid Palme affair.
He hopes, and I think in vain, that by giving them Libby they will stop harrassing him with other spurious investigations and he will be able to spend the rest of his presidency in relative peace.
A pardon, he reasons, will infuriate the dems again and they will redouble their efforts to drag down any other member of the administration they can sink their teeth into.
But that’s stupid. Nothing he could do short of suicide on the White House lawn would satisfy the dems. He should realize that by now.
Oh heck — I just don’t know anymore. I am so disgusted with Bush these days, on so many levels, I have given up on the idea that any good at all will come from the remainder of this administration.
From what I understand Libby has ecellent prospects on appeal. It would be so much better if the conviction were overturned than if the Prsident pardoned him. It’s worth the wait to see if he can be vindicated on appeal as opposed to a pardon.
Because Libby can and will win his case on appeal.
If Bush pardons Libby, then Libby can no longer clear his name. He will be tarnished for eternity.
A pardon suggests guilt. He has the appeal process to handle the injustice that has been done to him. To pardon him now, before the appeal has run its course, would short circuit the system. The only way a pardon would be good at this point is if the judge does not let him remain free pending the appeal. This judge has been anything but fair to Libby from day one and the only reason I can think of that he would not let Libby remain free pending appeal is that he has it out for Libby and knows if he’s going to get him it’s got to be before the appeal can wipe out the conviction.
This has got to be the single worst example of injustice that I have ever seen. It was never even proved that there was crime to begin with and yet Fitzgerald pushed on for two years or more and finally charged Libby with something that came down to absolutely nothing more than the two people remembered a phone conversation two years earlier. A conversation during which neither party took notes.
Since Bush is notoriously loyal to his cronies, the question is somewhat problematic. Based on his history, though, I can make one guess and that is that Libby is significantly more competent at what he does than is George. Bush’s loyalties are strongest toward those that can’t make that claim — i.e. Gonzalez, “Brownie”, Mineta (now there was a REAL jewel) Chertoff, Miers, etc.