Bent Corner

“I don’t believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own.”

George W. Bush explaining why he signed death warrants
for 152 inmates while governor of Texas.

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Martha Stewart lied when being questioned about insider stock trading. Scooter Libby lied when being questioned about leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent.

Martha Stewart is famous for baking cookies and making the perfect table arraignment. Scooter Libby is famous for being both the Chief-of-Staff and national security adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Martha Stewart ended up serving a five-month prison term. Scooter Libby ended up serving no time in prison.

Why is Scooter Libby exempt from serving even a day in prison when Martha Stewart did the same exact thing yet had to spend 5 months in prison?

President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term that Bush said was excessive.Bush’s move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case.

That meant Libby was likely to have to report to prison soon and put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby’s allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

“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.”

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, and Bush said his action still “leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby.”

I’m almost speechless. Does this mean Bush will now be reviewing every convicted felon’s sentence to ascertain if it’s too excessive or is this something he will reserve only for his buddies? A pardon would have looked better. By commuting the sentence, he’s admitting there was a crime committed, but that Libby should for some reason be exempt from actually really being punished for it.

If he did this because he truly thought the 2 1/2-year prison sentence was excessive, why didn’t he just shorten it down to something smaller? Because it wasn’t that he felt 30 months in prison was excessive, but that he was to go to prison at all is what Bush thought was excessive.

Link

That’s the only way to explain what neo-con Andrea Mitchell is now saying about her neocon buddy Scooter Libby. That she is smoking crack and lots of it. She actually said on Chris Matthews’ Hardball that Libby should be pardoned by the President and that polls show a majority of Americans agree:

They’re going to try to really tamp this down and appeal to the polling which indicates that most people think, in fact, that he should be pardoned. Scooter Libby should be pardoned.

Like Bush has ever worried what most people think. Look Andrea, I’m going to now tell you something that Chris Matthews or Tim Russert will never say to your heavily worked on face.

Please put that glass pipe down.

CNN conducted a poll that showed nearly 70% of the American people are against the President pardoning Libby. Just what poll were you referring too? Your plastic surgeon asking you and your husband what you two think doesn’t count.