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The President Hath Spoken
"You may object that it is not a trial at all; you are quite right. For it is only a trial if I recognize it as such." - Franz Kafka (The Trial).
Is anyone surprised that Scooter Libby's 30-month sentence was commuted?
It also shouldn't come as much of a surprise to know that President "things would be easier if I were a dictator" Bush has been downright miserly in using his constitutional pardon power in comparison to all the other presidents of the past century, including his Daddy.
In a little over six years in office, Bush has pardoned only 113 people and has flat out rejected more than 1,000 pardon applications. He's received about 5,000 requests for sentence reductions but has only granted three.
I can understand the reflex to criticize Bush for sparing a top adviser in a case where both the president and the vice president are implicated in the same investigation that led to the charges against said adviser.
Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051205/delavega) makes a good point. "The judge imposed a sentence in accordance with the sentencing guidelines; indeed, it was the most lenient sentence available under the applicable guideline range. Yet Bush, with no explanation whatsoever, has arbitrarily deemed the sentence 'excessive' and obliterated it."
And it's hard to argue with the assessment of former CIA intelligence analyst and State Department counter-terrorism expert Larry Johnson. Johnson, who knows Valerie Wilson personally and is now a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, says: "The commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence represents a tacit endorsement of the obstruction of justice perpetrated by the Bush administration as a whole."
Remember how Bush promised to remove any official implicated in the leak of the name of a covert CIA officer? "George Bush walked away from his pledge and allows Karl Rove to continue to hold security clearances. The Libby get-out-of-jail card is another sign that George Bush cares nothing about the law or the security of this nation," Johnson says bluntly.
When Bush was Governor of Texas he was singing a different clemency tune.
"As governor, Bush essentially viewed the clemency power as limited to cases of demonstrable actual innocence," Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas who has represented death-row inmates, told the New York Times.
"The exercise of the commutation power in Libby," Steiker said, "represents a dramatic shift from his attitude toward clemency in Texas, and it is entirely inconsistent with his longstanding, very limited approach."
But I'm glad Libby scooted. He was the fall-guy in the Bush administration's WMD debacle and I'm not a fan of substitute sacrifices. Never mind The Man next to The Man. What about The Man?
The other reason I'm glad Bush commuted Libby's sentence is because of the opportunity it provides.
According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice ( http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/poor/pp.html), there's over a million nonviolent drug offenders in jail right now that costs taxpayers about $24 billion dollars a year to incarcerate.
The president's commutation of Libby gives the national media a chance to ask an important question - the same question posed by National Libertarian Party chairman William Redpath: "If President Bush feels that Libby's punishment is too severe for the crime, then why does our judicial system still require prison for some nonviolent crimes where no victim exists?"
And, over at Doug Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy blog ( http://sentencing.typepad.com/), we find this prediction from Alan Michaels:
"I do think (the President's statement) will be thrown in the face of every line assistant arguing for a Guidelines sentence in every district court in the country, and I would expect it to carry weight with some judges. I suspect the President's action is very demoralizing to (Assistant U.S. Attorneys) around the country for this reason. These are folks who've backed the President's tough sentencing policy in the face of compelling and heart-rending arguments. Now the President makes the same argument they've been standing up to!"
Defense attorneys and sentencing law reformers take note. The President hath spoken.
Sean Gonsalves, longtime reporter and now assistant news editor for the Cape Cod Times, is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.
20 Comments so far
Show All"...why does our judicial system still require prison for some nonviolent crimes where no victim exists?"
It is because we have a "prison industry", it's just not for them.
sLiMsHaDy is absolutely correct. Not only is there an industry devoted to building and operating prisons, which implies that bodies are required to fill them, but those bodies are also utilized as slave laborers by many global corporations.
As the economy deteriorates, I expect to see more people incarcerated to serve as slave laborers.
Look for ever more laws criminalizing activities like public protesting.
Dave
I think you should send Republicans just to another planet, because here they just don't seem to fit in very well.
Preferably a planet that lacks an atmosphere. Or otherwise, anyway, they would just mess it up.
In Libby's whitewash trial and subsequent commutation, the name of the criminal who outed Valerie Plame is still not revealed to the American people. Who was that person, Mr Bush? People demand an answer.
Libby was also the right color for commutation (and somebody else pays the $250k fine for him). Everybody knows that Black just doesn't go well with commutation. Black goes with Death Penalties and Life+ sentences. Don't need no evidence. They don't have the Capital so they get the Punishment. Simple. This is just White America doing what it does best - doing a crime - and getting away with it. Like genocide or forced human labor. The Bush Crime Family is fulfillment NOT an exception.
I remember our President saying he'd "take care of" the person who was responsible for the leak. Well, I suppose he did.
"I do think (the President's statement) will be thrown in the face of every line assistant arguing for a Guidelines sentence in every district court in the country, and I would expect it to carry weight with some judges."
Would that be "carry weight" with all them loyalbushie judges who could give a rat's ass about the actual law as it is known today?
doesn't barbara bush have finantial interests in the prison system? they need to keep the prisons plugged, in order to satisfy the stockholders. time to turn michael moore loose.
You are correct about District Attorneys feeling demoralized by Bush's pardon of Libby. My good friend is a powerful D.A. in SoCal, a die-hard conservative Christian who has followed Bush like the Bethlehem Star to the promised land. NOTHING has dampened her support of BushCO until now. Ah, the sweet sound of another neocon's heart breaking.
georgeh: I remember our President saying he'd "take care of" the person who was responsible for the leak. Well, I suppose he did.
I thought it was pretty obvious that's what he meant all along...
:|
The President Hath Spoken.___ A good friend of mine, Sneaky Pete, has connections with some high rollers in DC. He sent me a transcript of a private conversation Bush had with Putin last week. It's pretty interesting and after reading it I changed my mind about our president, He's more knowledgable about foreign affair and smarter than I realized. I'll share it with you all.
Putin : "George, it's time to cut the bull shit and talk busines and we don't have to pretend we're buddies either. It's time to be very serious. This phoney war you started is causing everyone a lot of problems and I want to know right now if your're gonna get your dumb ass out the Mid-East and stay out".
Bush: "Yup".
Putin: "Did I hear you say,___ yup"?
Bush" "Yup".
Putin: "Are you Drunk again"?
Bush: "Yup".
Putin: "Listen to me you brain damaged moron, if you aren't out of Iraq in three months, We are going to put three divisions in Mexicoo and China has agreed to cut off your loans and demand payment on your bonds, we'll ruin your economy. Do you understand me"?
Bush: Snoorreezzzzzz.
Putin: Did he fall asleep"/?
Coni: "Yup".
I know where there are a few hundred bodies that can be incarcerated and a profit made from them. Prison was once where we put those who were a danger to the society now we make them president.
The neocons advocated jail for Paris Hilton. So did I. In fact she served more time than scooter. That I didn't advocate.
The rules are clear:
Treason = you take a walk.
Smoke a joint = you go to Wackenhut's Club
In one of Rod Stewarts songs, he sings,if you steal a little you go to jail, if you steal a lot, they make you a king.
Sending neo cons to another planet would be unfair to ET, but the zoo might be an option if we let the species in question vote on it.
The prison industrial complex is just one more example of how we have let our notions of society go completely upside down.
In our winner-take-all, no-holds-barred capitalism, everything is seen as a business venture and in a business model. So you have prisons needing prisoners, schools run by testers for score outcomes, healthcare schemes designed for the healthy at the expense of those needing real help, and a drug industry that treats (controls) symptoms.
Those who like it this way make all the decisions. This is a far DEEPER crisis of lack of democracy than virtually any politician is willing to admit.
Changes, if possible, will be up to the people organizing in new ways.
alan - I do not know the origin of the Rod Stewart "paraphrase" in one of his songs, but my great grandfather had me on his knee most likely before Rod was born and forwarned me (he was a Baptist Minister) - "Son, if you steal a loaf of bread you'll go to jail but if you steal a $million$ you'll be the governor." I have a feeling the saying has been restated in various forms since at least the days of Caesar. It has been true for as long as man formed politics and laws.