Blog Flux Directory Subscribe in NewsGator Online Subscribe with Bloglines http://www.wikio.com Blog directory
And, yes, I DO take it personally: The usual suspects weigh in with totally predictable opinions on Libby
Mandy: Great blog!
Mark: Thanks to all the contributors on this blog. When I want to get information on the events that really matter, I come here.
Penny: I'm glad I found your blog (from a comment on Think Progress), it's comprehensive and very insightful.
Eric: Nice site....I enjoyed it and will be back.
nora kelly: I enjoy your site. Keep it up! I particularly like your insights on Latin America.
Alison: Loquacious as ever with a touch of elegance -- & right on target as usual!
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Send tips and other comments to: profmarcus2010@yahoo.com /* ---- overrides for post page ---- */ .post { padding: 0; border: none; }

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The usual suspects weigh in with totally predictable opinions on Libby

there was a knock on my door late last evening... it was my daughter-in-law's mom coming to tell me in shocked tones that bush had commuted libby's sentence... not the most excitable of people and not, by any stretch, a news or politics junkie, she had been watching local news on a san francisco station and evidently the news announcers there were reporting bush's decision in thinly veiled outrage (not inappropriately, imho)... anyway, she was unusually agitated, which, i suspect, is a good thing... maybe it's starting to sink in to those among us who are not as news and politics-obsessed that we have a situation in this country that is seriously out of control...

from today's wapo editorialist...

The WaPo argues that President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's entire prison sentence "sends the wrong message about the seriousness" of his offense. "We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive," the editors write. "But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did -- to probation and a large fine -- is not defensible" ... under the headline "Soft on Crime," the NYT argues that President Bush's decision underscores "the way this president is tough on crime when it's committed by common folk." The editors write that when the president was explaining his decision, he "did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell" ... the Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, argues that the president didn't go far enough. By "failing to issue a full pardon," the editors write, "Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy" ... NYT columnist David Brooks argues that Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence was "exactly right." "It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his career, but not his family."

i'd summarize some of the more ridiculous and heavily spun verbiage for you, but you can do that for yourselves in 10-second eyeballing of the above...

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Submit To Propeller


And, yes, I DO take it personally home page