07.02.07
Libby's commuted sentence
I am appalled that Bush commuted Libby’s sentence.
Some comments I’ve read from Republican supporters have said, essentially, “Teddy Kennedy got away with negligent homicide and Sandy Berger got away with stealing documents from the National Archive, so this is fair. Clinton also committed perjury.”
Teddy Kennedy’s case happened in another time, when drunk driving was nowhere near as criminalized as it is now. Note that Laura Bush also killed someone with a car, and no charges were filed. Note that George Bush appears to have had a number of issues with drunk driving. Times were different.
Sandy Berger did a bad thing, for which he was rightly convicted. He did not “get away with it”, and he did not get pardoned.
Clinton was spanked for lying about an affair with an intern, not about undermining national security. However, it is my understanding that his guilt hinges upon the meaning of the word “sex”. Do blowjobs count as “sex” or does “sex” only mean penis-inserted-into-vagina? I believe that there are a lot of people who would say the latter, especially in a formal context (like a court proceeding).
Finally, I thought Bush won the last election on “character”. Where is the character in saying “yeah, it’s wrong, but they did it too”?
I long for a President who holds him or her underlings to higher standards than his or her opponents did.
