More on the Marc Rich pardon vis a vis the Libby commutation
in a post earlier today, stop defending clinton, i was probably not as clear as i might have been about my criticism of bill clinton... let me say right off the bat, in no way whatsoever am i qualified to comment on the legalities or the process followed by bill clinton in his pardon of marc rich, nor, by the same token, am i qualified to comment on those same aspects of george bush's commutation of scooter libby's sentence... but i CAN comment on something else, something i believe is more important...
forget about the legalities, forget about executive powers of clemency, and forget about the validity of the charges - in the case of rich, or the conviction - in the case of libby... there is something more fundamental that no one is addressing... more than any other elected or appointed public official, the president of the united states should be expected to avoid even the APPEARANCE of impropriety... i don't want to hear reasons, i don't want to be subjected to finely-honed legal arguments... clinton's pardon of rich and bush's commutation of libby's sentence both reek of impropriety, and, therefore, they had no business doing either...
jeralyn, in her ususal cogent, lawyerly way, does a careful, point-by-point comparison of the two situations, but neglects to mention that BOTH presidents INVITED the uproar that followed their decisions... BOTH clinton AND bush made decisions that, given their connections with the two individuals in question, shouldn't have even been considered, and that, to me, is the entire issue in a nutshell... if it's going to be perceived as a compromise of your ethics, why would you want to do it in the first place...? i think we've got a pretty good idea why george let libby off the hook, but clinton was no less heedless of the fallout from his pardon of rich...
Tweet
forget about the legalities, forget about executive powers of clemency, and forget about the validity of the charges - in the case of rich, or the conviction - in the case of libby... there is something more fundamental that no one is addressing... more than any other elected or appointed public official, the president of the united states should be expected to avoid even the APPEARANCE of impropriety... i don't want to hear reasons, i don't want to be subjected to finely-honed legal arguments... clinton's pardon of rich and bush's commutation of libby's sentence both reek of impropriety, and, therefore, they had no business doing either...
jeralyn, in her ususal cogent, lawyerly way, does a careful, point-by-point comparison of the two situations, but neglects to mention that BOTH presidents INVITED the uproar that followed their decisions... BOTH clinton AND bush made decisions that, given their connections with the two individuals in question, shouldn't have even been considered, and that, to me, is the entire issue in a nutshell... if it's going to be perceived as a compromise of your ethics, why would you want to do it in the first place...? i think we've got a pretty good idea why george let libby off the hook, but clinton was no less heedless of the fallout from his pardon of rich...
Labels: Bill Clinton, clemency, commuted sentence, George Bush, Jeralyn Merritt, Marc Rich, Presidential pardon, Scooter Libby, TalkLeft
Submit To PropellerTweet
posted by profmarcus at
7/06/2007
