Why are the Warmongers Always Wrong?

It's all just a little bit of history repeating...

Here is a Recipe for Disaster

Armed Residents On Patrol In New Haven

Determined to keep their neighborhood safe, some neighborhood men said they are forced to patrol themselves.

"We informed police that we're going to be doing armed patrols," said Avi Hack, one of the participants.

As if anyone needs to point out the obvious:

"Their presence on the street is a good idea, but the weapons, I don't think they should be carrying. I don't think they need them, really," said Tom Benson, a resident.

Residents patrolling GOOD! Neighborhood watch programs and volunteer foot patrols have proven effective time and time again.

But weapons in the hands of citizens that are not professionally trained and certified in how to deal with stopping criminals... OUTRAGEOUSLY FREAKIN' STUPID! Let me know when one of these yahoos accidentally kills an innocent bystander. I'll send them an "I told ya so!" letter so they'll have something to read while they are in jail.

The Anti-Immigrant Message Never Changes

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Just a little update on the ICE raids via HatCity Blog:

I've been closely monitoring the events surrounding the immigration raids in New Haven and it seems like the overflowing outrage from the Fair Haven community and Mayor John DeStefano made ICE blink, and I don't think Mayor Boughton is going to be happy with the results...

Read more at HatCity Blog...

Help Wanted: Prestigious Senate Career Opportunity

A prestigious opportunity for career advancement in the Senate:

The Democratic party is in search of a new Chairman (or chairwoman/chairperson) for the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Moderate Senators need only apply.(1)

The Chairman's responsibilities and Jurisdictions will include real oversight concerning failures of the Bush administration in providing security to our nation during times of war, illegal invasions, ongoing occupations, and natural disasters, as well as overseeing the bloated budget and operations of the largest branch of government ever to be created in the US governments' history through legislation authored under the Republican controlled Senate and House, and signed by the Republican pResident of the time.

Your main and immidiate responsibilities will include holding the needed hearings, directing sub-commitees and legislation needed to avoid repeating the previous disasters, corrupt practices, and failures that will be found with the propper direction and oversight of a NON-PARTISAN and ethical Senate leader.

Send all applications to Senator Harry Reid(2)

(1)Minorities such as moderate Republicans having no ties to far-right-wing radical organizations like the Neoconservative movement, the American Enterprise Instute, The Heritage Foundation, Energy Corporations, or the Bush administrations most recent policy proposals that are doomed to failure, are encouraged to apply to Senator Harry Reid for any consideration concerning this soon to be available position.

(2)Note to applicants: Please mark the subject of the Email as "Homeland Security" and refer to this x-posted Blog diary in the opening paragragh of the application. You will be contacted shortly before I post an "I told you so!" diary covering the flawed positons, election statement lies, and propaganda of the far-right-wing radical Neoconservative Joe Lieberman.

ReBlogged Since this position has yet
to be filled by a qualified candidate.

A New Babysitter For bush

Via Think Progress:

Ed Gillespie, the current chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, will step down from his position as the state’s party head in order to replace Dan Bartlett as counselor to President Bush. According to the Times-Dispacth, Gillespie “was reluctant to leave…but he answered the president’s pleadings.” Gillespie, a member of the inner circle of 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, played a a key role for the White House in shepherding Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts through the Senate.

No word yet on whether Gillespie has the bottle or diaper duty for the Child in Chief.

cartoon via dhonig at My Left Wing

Delaying the inevitable

We'll have to wait until Thursday for Libby to be in the shackles he deserves:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald urged a federal judge Tuesday not to delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case.

snip

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who sentenced Libby to prison for lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, has said he sees no reason to grant Libby's request. He did not set a date for Libby to report to prison, however, and scheduled a hearing on the issue for Thursday.

The defense is falsely claiming that they they "were unfairly prohibited from discussing the classified issues that were weighing on Libby's mind at the time and from questioning NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell about why she said lots of journalists knew Plame's identity."

Fitzgerald provides the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" answers to that:

On the classified information issue, Fitzgerald noted that defense attorneys did not call Libby or Cheney to testify to bolster Libby's defense, despite saying they would.

For someone that stonewalled an investigation into a treasonous conspiracy Libby got off easy. He should quit his whining and crying and just start serving the time.

If he really wanted to avoid doing the the time he would have told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the very begining. As a lawyer, Libby knew that from the day he started lying to Patrick Fitzgerald.

I fully expect to see Libby crying and hear him calling out for his Mommy when he is dragged off to prison too. Sorry there Scotter, but your Momma cheney is too busy trying to lie us into another war to worry about you right now.

From Gitmo to Nuremberg

Hot on the heels of this recent court decision:

"The Fourth Circuit today held that this Administration violated the Constitution by holding Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as an enemy combatant in a military brig without formally charging him for years."

Comes these statements from a former Nuremberg Prosecutor:

The U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the U.S. Nuremberg prosecutors said on Monday.

"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

King went on to talk about using torture as a means to gain information:

"The concept of a fair trial is part of our tradition, our heritage," [...] "That's what made Nuremberg so immortal -- fairness, a presumption of innocence, adequate defense counsel, opportunities to see the documents that they're being tried with."

King, who interrogated Nuremberg defendant Albert Speer, was incredulous that the Guantanamo rules left open the possibility of using evidence obtained through coercion.

"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of," King said.

Neither did the Founding Fathers, nor any other American that believes that the Constitution is more than just a piece of paper to look at. In fact the protections from the government, and the courts they control, were written into there specifically to avoid these nightmare scenarios.

The United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in the Suspension Clause, located in Article One, Section 9. It states:

“

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.

”

The writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a civil, not criminal, proceeding in which a court inquires as to the legitimacy of a prisoner's custody. Typically, habeas corpus proceedings are to determine whether the court which imposed sentence on the defendant had jurisdiction and authority to do so, or whether the defendant's sentence has expired. Habeas corpus is also used as a legal avenue to challenge other types of custody such as pretrial detention or detention by the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement pursuant to a deportation proceeding.

Bus Drivers: Vote on Decertifying Union Fails

Previously reported in the NewsTimes on June 8th:

School bus drivers voted today on decertifying Teamsters Local 677, but the outcome of the vote might not be known for weeks.

A number of the votes cast today have been challenged, according to a press release from All-Star Transportation.

snip

The vote would nullify the contract they voted 48-11 to ratify two weeks ago.

All-Star Transportation offers the moon, but as I said previously, this looks more like classic union busting techniques:

NEW MILFORD -- In the wake of a stalemate Friday over efforts to decertify Teamsters Local 677, it may be weeks before local school bus drivers learn the fate of their pay-enhancement contract with All-Star Transportation.

snip

Mary Boland, a non-union bus driver from New Milford, said "36 voted to put the union out, 40 voted for the union. Two votes were challenged by the petitioner and NLRB, and another seven were challenged by the union."

snip

Non-union drivers said they are hoping they will receive a 5 percent increase next year, with new drivers to earn $12.40 an hour and senior drivers $16.

I say "union busting" because it becoming clearly apparent that some people are doing everything they can to get rid of the union, and stalling the ratification of the contract that the union agreed to with All-Star.

I heard a rumour that All-Star is offering a 401k plan to them if they decertify the union.

First things first: Don't these drivers realize that they will be the ones funding the 401k, and not the company? What a great offer!

And second thing: Considering how the negotiations have gone so far it doesn't look there is much reason to trust All-Star to follow through on any offers, even offers that are meaningless.

And a third thing: Isn't it illegal for All-Star Transportation to be making offers to anyone but the union? (unless this rumoured 401k offer was sent through the union?)

And a last note: The drivers better not put too much hope in getting a fair shake at the NLRB. The bush administration has been stacking the NLRB with flunkies guaranteed to deliver to "corporate interests" time and time again.

Nathan Newman writing at TPM Cafe's labor issues arm, House of Labor, pretty much sums up how I feel about statements and actions from companies that are blatantly illegal:

If you wonder why I get angry when folks say nice things about corporate criminal union busters like Wal-Mart, maybe you should read the new report by American Rights at Work which details the extent and severity of that corporate crime wave, a crime wave where tens of thousands of workers are victimized each year with stolen jobs and crushed lives.

As this study highlights, a typical union organizing drive starts with a majority of workers signing cards in support of having a union. Yet in the course of the elections, corporations embark on full-scale illegal assault on their workforce:

• 30% of employers fire pro-union workers.
  
• 49% of employers threaten to close a worksite when workers try to form a union.
  
• 51% of employers coerce workers into opposing unions with selective bribery or favoritism.

The end result is that despite starting almost every union drive with majority support, by the time the corporate wave of crime is over, only 31% of union elections end with a vote in support of the union.

I am pretty certain that the same can be said about companies interference in labor contracts after a union has been legally formed and represents employees in contract negotiations. Today's companies will say and do whatever they can to get what they want, and the NLRB has been quite generous in supporting anti-union activities since bush took power. Some people might even think it has been corrupted to the same degree as the Department of Justice has.

Good News From the NewsTimes Live!

Via HatCity BLOG:

It's about time...

Our reader comment section has and will continue to draw controversy about what readers post and what we choose not to remove from the site.

But to monitor what’s there, we are asking you, the posters, to help us out.

We now have a new feature that will allow posters to notify us of any inappropriate comments. To flag a comment as inappropriate, you must be a registered poster. You then can click on the red Flag as Inappropriate text posted in the comment section. An e-mail is then immediately sent to me, alerting me of a possible inappropriate comment.

Smart move...the quicker the News-Times remove the scum from their comment section, the better.

We will always be watching and hopefully it will work. I have no problems with people that put up differing views but some of the commenters, in the past, have crossed over the line from spouting not just views or lies BUT outright "hate" literature. Freedom of speech is a long toss from "freedom to hate." Some of the comments looked like the "Hail Mary pass of hate" there.

Kudos to the Danbury NewsTimes if its new mechanism works as it is hoped it will. We know they didn't write those comments, but the sooner hate is confronted head on for what it is, the better the comments sections there will become.

Also, kudos to HatCity BLOG for covering this issue time and time again, which probably helped make a difference here.

As a side note: If the NewsTimes had let us know in advance that they were planning on making these changes they might have avoided a few scathing LTTEs and Blog posts on this subject. WE ARE NOT YOUR ENEMIES, contrary to what idiots like Joe Klein would have you believe. We just want to help you get better at what you are supposed to do. We also understand that writing code to change features on an internet website takes time to test and implement. Bloggers do that all the time. Maybe some advance notice would be in order next time? Just a minor suggestion, because I hate to nitpick on your doing the right thing.

More Anti-Iranian Propaganda via ABC?

Is this just more anti-Iranian propaganda:

Iran Caught Red-Handed shipping Arms to Taliban

The April convoy was tracked from Iran into Helmand province and led a fierce firefight that destroyed one vehicle, according to the official analysis. A second vehicle was reportedly found to contain small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and more than 650 pounds of C4 demolition charges.

A second convoy of two vehicles was spotted on May 3 and led to the capture of five occupants and the seizure of RPG-7mm rockets and more than 1,000 pounds of C4, the analysis says.

It strikes me as odd that Afghanistan's Helmand Province is along the Pakistani border, where you would be more likely to find "Taliban allies," yet they are saying it is arms shipments from Iran. It strikes me twice as odd given previous claims like this that have been discredited in the past.

The previous evidence discussed in these new reports by ABC, and previously debunked by your local liberal brewery:

Perpetuating The PowerPoint Lies

The White House was told twice to redo the PowerPoint presentation purporting Iranian ties to American deaths. According to The National Journal the intelligence community demanded that the presentation be rewritten and washed of overstated claims:

At least twice in the past month, the White House has delayed a PowerPoint presentation initially prepared by the military to detail evidence of suspected Iranian materiel and financial support for militants in Iraq. The presentation was to have been made at a press conference in Baghdad in the first week of February. Officials have set no new date, but they say it could be any day.

Even as U.S. officials in Baghdad were ready to make the case, administration principals in Washington who were charged with vetting the PowerPoint dossier bowed to pressure from the intelligence community and ordered that it be scrubbed again.

This still wasn't enough scrubbing top get the facts straight and so some of the misinformation still persists. The NewsTimes provides one of the many arguments to support Murtha's plan to require fully trained and EQUIPPED American soldiers before they can be deployed in theater:

News Times Live Editorial:
"Almost four years later, the armor problems remain. It's not a matter of money; it's a matter of planning.

This week, the Pentagon admitted that there is a shortage of armor to protect troops involved in the president's so-called 'surge' that will add more than 20,000 American military personnel to the Iraq war.

The president spent part of Wednesday's news conference alleging that Iran is supplying new deadly weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But what is he doing to require that American troops have the armor they need to protect themselves against these new weapons?

Known as 'explosively formed penetrators,' these weapons are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in Iraq."

Yes the armor problems still remain, but so does the misinformation campaign that the lying Bush administartion intended to seed in the news. There are two major problems with the "evidence" supplied by the military and the Bush administration.

1. About 170 out of the over 3000 American deaths are POSSIBLY attributable to the Iranian supported Shia militias. Why? Because that is the total number killed by all shite in that time. A drop in the bucket. And certainly not all of the US forces killed by Shia insurgents are not all linked to Iran. A drop in the bucket. The vast MAJORITYof the IED's and other weapons used to kill Americans are planted or used by the Sunnis. A group that Iran does not support. However, Saudi Arabia sends truckloads full of money to the Sunnis is Iraq, the Sunnis that are largely responsible for the most deaths and injuries of American soldiers in Iraq. I don't think the Sunnis are buying cakes and cookies with that Saudi money.

2. Some of the weapons that the military showed as evidence of being supplied by Iran had markings written in English. Iranians mark weapons they manufacture in Farsi, although, Pakistan manufactures the same/similar weapons and marks them in English. Other weapons, like EFPs, that are purported to be too sophisticated to have been made by the Shia or the Sunnis, and therefore "must be coming from Iran", are similar to weapons that many other groups like Hezbollah and the IRA have made in the past, according to Middle East expert Juan Cole. (Scroll down, click on the Juan Cole video)

The Danbury NewsTimes bit on the EFPs lie, and blaming Iran. As noble as the real thrust of the Editorial may be, it is still perpetuating Bush propaganda.

The evidence clearly points to countries that are known supporters and financiers of the Sunnis (IE: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.) and/or just the easy spreading of information on typically used weapons amongst terrorism groups everywhere. And just whose name pops up to reenforce this manipulation of inteligence?

U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday.

One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. “I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,” said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich.

Republican Neocon extremist and propagandist Joe Lieberman. And pushing a lie that was already laid to rest over year ago:

Against the inference that this all comes from Iran is the concept that Iraqis themselves would be capable of copying a design and therefore do not need to get bombs from Iran.

And there have been a number of news reports over the last year expressing scepticism, even among military personnel, about the link to Iran.

The Washington Post reported last October that British troops in the south doubted the claim.

A year ago, the London Times said that British officers in Basra had stopped making any such claim, saying only that the technology matched bomb-making found elsewhere in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Syria.

While reporters and news agencies across the country are starting to catch whiffs of Bush Neocon propaganda, and pointing out some of the stinkers, they are still missing some of the really BIG lies. And most of them relate to the Drumbeat for War with Iran that is just a repeat of Iraq lies all over again:

Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

I'm just waiting for the fictitious mushroom clouds to start to reappear...

Obviously, there is good reason to doubt the veracity of the ABC reports of Iranian ties to a Sunni group that is well known to be their enemy. The interesting spin here is this little quote from the ABC junk:

"These clearly have the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution Guards' Quds force," said Jones.

The coalition diplomatic message says the demolition charges "contained the same fake U.S. markings found on explosives recovered from insurgents operating in the Baghdad area."

Now they are saying that what used to prove that it more likely came from Pakistan (markings on the weapons English), is just a trick by the Iranian Revolution Guards. But please ignore the fact that Helmand province is right along Pakistan's border, not Iran's border, and most certainly ignore evidence like this from StevenD at the Booman Tribune:

Here's where it gets confusing for me. One day the top US general in Afghanistan says one thing about Iran supplying their former enemy, the Taliban with weapons ...

No Proof Iran Supplying Weapons to Taliban, US General Says

By Katherine Poythress
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 06, 2007

... [General Dan] McNeill, the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), spoke live from Afghanistan at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday. He said it is not uncommon in Afghanistan to encounter weapons that originate in other countries. However, "I haven't seen conclusive evidence there's anything in the way of formal sanctioning by the Iranian government to provide weapons to the Taliban," he said.

Mortar rounds of Iranian origin were found in one of the convoys, and plastic explosives similar to the U.S.-made C-4 were uncovered in the other. "Beyond that, there's not much significant to report on these two convoys," McNeill said.

... and President Karzai is, like all buddy-buddy with Teheran.

snip

Why doesn't the President of Afghanistan and the senior American general in that country simply support the administration's line that Iran is arming it's former enemy the Taliban? An enemy, by the way, Iranian politicians claimed to have helped the US military depose back in 2001:

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards fought alongside and advised the Afghan rebels who helped U.S. forces topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the guards' former leader says.

In an interview by e-mail, Mohsen Rezaie, a candidate in Iran's presidential elections next week, says the United States has not given Iran enough credit. He says Iran played an "important role in the overthrow of the Taliban" in 2001 ...

Current and former U.S. troops and officials confirm Iranians were present with the Northern Alliance as U.S. forces organized the rebels in 2001. ...

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman says he has "no knowledge of (Iranian) assistance." The CIA refused to comment.

Former CIA Afghan team leader Gary Schroen says there were two Iranian guard colonels attached to a Northern Alliance commander, Bismullah Khan, outside Kabul when U.S. Special Forces arrived in September 2001.

Makes you wonder how valid is this "evidence" of Iran's clear involvement with the Taliban when our own top general in the area refuses to confirm it. And our own man in Afghanistan says Iran is his country's BFF. And when past efforts to show Iran is a primary supplier of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq didn't exactly pan out. Not that Bush and the Pentagon would ever lie to us about the danger Iran poses to America -- would they?

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Propaganda and disinformation? Things that make you go -- Hmmmm. Well, so to speak, that is.

Hmmmmm. I'm thinkin' about it. I'm thinkin' it is all more propaganda aimed at us to stir up a war that would never happen under a more ethical administration.

Is Bush Off the Wagon?

Looked like beer to me... But what do I care if he is AWOL, and passed out on the floor of Alabama bars when he should have been... Oh wait, that was his military service and before he quit drinking.

Democratic Myths on Ending the War

Video and comments via David Sirota:

Watch Democratic presidential candidates pass the buck and pretend they have no power to end the Iraq War.

If you are not part of the solution,
then you are part of the problem.

On Secession and Seperation

CT Blue on the Vermont secessionist movement:

The Vermont Secession movement is alive and well. I think it’s terribly selfish of them to not invite the rest of New England along. We could detach Fairfield County if they wanted, so our sole Republican Congressperson would feel more at home.

The folks in Vermont have it right:

“The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable _ it’s too big, it’s too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens,” said Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons, a quarterly newspaper dedicated to secession.

“We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war,” Williams said. “If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what’s left of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire.”

In truth, this country can’t last forever. Someday it will disintegrate, or descend into tyranny. Disintegration is certainly preferable.

Since we all know that nothing lasts forever, most of us would agree that at some point, this country will no longer exist, at least in anywhere near its present form.

I lived in Vermont for a few years and was surprised at how many people take that topic seriously, and have for a long time. It wasn't as large or as vocal as the separatist movement in Quebec, or as violent. I lived in the heart of the October Crisis, since the kidnapped Pierre Laporte lived a couple of blocks from our house, so I remember the military on every corner, and monitoring our local parks, and every ones' daily movements... Not an ideal situation for the average kid. For those of you not familiar with Canadian politics, here is a "Wiki quickie" rundown of the basics:

Pierre Laporte (25 February 1921 – 17 October 1970), was a Canadian politician who was the Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour of the province of Quebec at the time he was kidnapped and murdered by members of the terrorist group, the Front de Libération du Québec (Quebec Liberation Front).

snip

On October 10, 1970 Laporte was kidnapped from his home in Saint-Lambert, Quebec by a cell of the Quebec terrorist group known as the FLQ. They dubbed him the "Minister of Unemployment and Assimilation," and held him hostage in an anti-government protest. The events that followed became known as the "October Crisis" when the War Measures Act was invoked and Pierre Laporte's dead body was found in the trunk of a car seven days later on October 17. He had been strangled. His kidnappers were subsequently captured and sentenced to long prison terms for his murder, but in fact only served terms ranging from 7 to 11 years.

The secession issue has always been there in Vermont. And I don't doubt that it is getting more vocal these days.

Can't say I blame them given the situation in Washington over the last 10 or 20 years. "Empire" and the size and corruptibility of the US government are things that too few Americans will even acknowledge as real issues that need some serious attention. At this time there is no party that is willing to hold every politician accountable. Even the Democratic party has only a few "people candidates" that are consistently labeled as on the fringe by the media now. The bulk of Democratic candidates are beholden to the same corrupting agents as the bulk of Republican candidates. Though, the Democratic ones are for the most part less extremist in their corporatist views.

To Pardon OR Not To Pardon, That is the Answer

Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars had this up today:

On the issue of whether Bush will pardon Scooter Libby, the NYT reported:

A former senior administration official with his own ties to the case said Mr. Libby had failed to meet the general standard for a pardon by not showing contrition or serving any time. This official also noted that Mr. Libby had also been found guilty of lying to investigators, the same offense that led to the impeachment of Mr. Clinton.

The former official, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the president, said: “It would show a deep disregard for the rule of law if he was to do it right now, when there has been no remorse shown by a convicted felon and no time has been served. How’s this going to fit in his long-term legacy?”

As Steve M. responded, “Yeah — apart from this, his record on the rule of law is perfect! And his legacy is rock-solid! Why on earth would he want to spoil them by doing something so out of character?"

Generally I would agree with Steve M., but the only thing we have on record concerning pardons from Bush is something I caught in March from Newsweek:

Scooter's Pardon Problem - Bush By the Book

No (scape)goats in this book. But according to Isikoff and Hosenball at Newsweek this is what the fall guy can expect:

Scooter Libby’s Pardon Problem :

"Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

snip

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to “look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered."

Get ready for prison now, Scooter...
You have plenty of time before sentencing to get your affairs in order NOW, so there should be no reasons to delay your entering the system as soon as the sentence is pronounced.

As a side note on this:
How strained must the relationship between bush and cheney be, when cheney has to make his plea for a pardon on the national news? Since when do Republicans take their "inner business dirty dealings" public like that? They usually do that stuff behind closed doors.

I would say that things do look particularly bad for Libby, and certainly for his band of merry traitors that don't want to chance Scooter flipping them to avoid prison. I have to start thinking about the possibility that MAYBE bush had nothing to do with the leaking, and as long as there is no pardon that line of reasoning might make sense. The reality is that as soon as bush does give a pardon to Scooter (if he does?), or anyone else that Scooter may flip, it is pretty much an admission of bushies' own guilt.

No matter how you look at it, there is no way to justify pardoning Scooter Libby without it being an admission of guilt by the President.

Any innocent President would be furious with Libby and wouldn't pardon him in a million years.

But Bush is not innocent. Libby lied for the President. And if Bush pardons Libby then we will know for certain that the President himself is the one that should be doing jail time for the crime that Libby covered up.

We shall see.

Yes, we shall. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for the dying days of this presidency to get the answer, as to the extent of bush's involvement in the leak.

I'll see your Double Wanker

Really pathetic…

It seems that Joe hates being labeled a wanker….Here’s some advice. Stop Wanking…
(Via C&L)

And Raise you a triple twit...

BooMan caught Joke Line in some of his typical "journalmalism":

Do me a favor and look at the roll call of the House vote on the Iraq supplemental. You should see the name Harman on this list of 'Nays'. She's right there between Hare and Hastings (FL) and it's pretty clear that the House clerk recorded her vote as a 'no'. Maybe that is some kind of clerical error, or maybe Jane has forgotten how to vote, but it seems to make a mockery of Smokin' Joe Klein's point here:

I was wrong, sadly, last week to say that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would vote for the Iraq supplemental bill. They voted against. As readers here know, I would have voted for the bill. Voting against it means you're in favor of a precipitous departure from Iraq...

...Yesterday I spoke with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Ca.) just back from Iraq, who voted for the bill--as did a majority of Democrats who are not running for President. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this. We need a new strategy and I hope we can force one in September," she told me. "But I flew into Baghdad on a troop transport with 150 kids, heading into the field. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment, the armor they need. I couldn't do that."

Like I said, maybe there is a clerical error, but right now the official tally shows that Harman could indeed 'do that'. As for Klein's other point, Obama and Hillary voted 'nay' for the same reason that many of their colleagues voted 'yes'. They have no balls. But, unlike their colleagues, they got the vote right. Contrary to Klein's childish assessment, a nay vote on this bill wasn't a vote for a 'precipitous departure from Iraq'. It was plainly and simply a vote against funding the war with ineffectual strings attached.

Now there is a lot of irony coming up around the bend in Joke Line's Triple Twit. Part of the super duper wanker's usual "Blame those Lefy Bloggers!" response:

First, let me say that I really enjoy blogging. It's a brilliant format for keeping readers up to date on the things I care about—and for exchanging information with them. I recently asked Swampland readers with military experience to comment on whether it was General David Petraeus' "duty" to tell the unvarnished truth about Iraq when he testifies on Capitol Hill in September. About a dozen readers responded with links to treatises about "duty" in various military journals. Furthermore, I've found that some great reporting takes place in the blogosphere: Juan Cole's Iraq updates are invaluable, Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo did serious muckraking about the U.S. attorneys scandal, and Ezra Klein (no relation) is excellent on health care. I love linking to smart work by others, something you just can't do in a print column.

The irony of Joke Line's Triple Twit response? Right now, getting cross country traffic from big national Blogs is a reponse from one of those "great reporting" Blogs to Joke Line's sad bashing of his journalmalism pointing out Joke Line's lies:

TPM Cafe

Joe Klein has made one of his periodic attacks on the liberal blogosphere. As usual in order to make himself look good, and make his critics look ridiculous, he lies about what actually happened.

Here’s Klein’s version:

A strange thing happened to me the day the House of Representatives voted to pass the Iraq-war-funding bill. Congresswoman Jane Harman of California called as the debate was taking place. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this," she told me. "We need a new strategy, and I hope we can force one in September. But I flew into Baghdad [with 150 young soldiers recently]. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment... they need. I couldn't do that." I posted what Harman said on Swampland, the political blog at Time.com, along with my opinion that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had changed their positions and voted against the funding for the worst possible reason: presidential politics.
And then Harman changed her position. After we spoke, she voted against the funding. The next day, I was blasted by a number of left-wing bloggers: Klein screwed up! I had quoted Harman in the past tense—common usage for politicians who know their words will appear after a vote takes place. That was sloppy and... suspicious! Proof that you just can't trust the mainstream media. On Eschaton, a blog that specializes in media bashing, I was given the coveted "Wanker of the Day" award. Eventually, Harman got wind of this and called, unbidden, to apologize for misleading me, saying I had quoted her correctly but she had changed her mind to reflect the sentiments of her constituents. I published her statement and still got hammered by bloggers and Swampland commenters for "stalking" Harman into an apology, for not checking her vote in the Congressional Record, for being a "water boy for the right wing" and many other riffs unfit to print.

Or to sum in up. Klein spoke to Harmon prior to the vote, and she indicated she would vote for the supplemental. Klein then posts the Harman quote and also says that Clinton and Obama, in voting against the supplemental, had changed their positions. Then Harman changed her position, and the next day bloggers attacked him. Atrios called him a wanker. Harman later called him to apologize, Klein published her statement, but the criticism did not let up either in the blogosphere or among the commenters at Swampland.

Except this is not what happened. The Iraq vote was taken in the House at 6:45 PM, and in the Senate at 8:26 PM on May 24. Joe posted his claim about Harmon’s vote – and Clinton and Obama’s change of position at 9:37 AM the next day. Within two hours, the Swampland commenters were pointing out that Joe had gotten Harman’s vote wrong. By 11:13, Booman Tribune had noted that Klein had gotten it wrong, and at 12:53 Atrios cited Klein as “wanker of the day”, linking to BooMan. Sometime after 4PM, Joe gets a call from a Harman staffer, telling him that Harman had voted against the bill, and Klein posts that at 5:13PM. Later that night, Harman leaves a voicemail apologizing to Klein, which he posts at 12:54 the next day.

In other words, while Klein would have you believe that he posted about Harmon’s vote before she changed her mind (“I posted what Harman said on Swampland…[t]hen Harman changed her mind”) there was more than 15 hours between the time Harman changed her mind, and Joe said she’d voted for the bill.

And while Joe’s commenters (who he cites later for their viciousness) tried repeatedly to get Joe to correct his post beginning less than two hours after he posted it, he ignored them. Only when he got the staffer’s call did he correct the record, and then it took him an extra hour to do so. Harman’s call didn’t come until well after the staffers call.

Double wanker and super duper triple twit Joe Klein. I wonder if he'll link to that great diary at Josh Marshall's community?