Chime in.

On the eve of Bush leaving office.

I think it's better if the pardon comes down sooner rather than later.
Make it a non-issue in '08

You may be right.

Everybody expects it anyway, and supporters will appreciate it.

It would be flat out ballsy to do so tonight.
I'd have a beer over it.

Bushie would love to do it, but I think his handlers will advise against it.

When Bush leaves office. He can't pardon him now, lest more of the dirt stick to Cheney and Rove.

What dirt? The source of the leak is Armitage. Not the White House.

The sources were Armitage, Rove, and Libby. (maybe Fleisher too?)

I thought AWOL was outraged and was going to get rid of whoever leaked (everyone around him) and pronto.

Of course we know he's a f----ing liar.

Don't forget Joe Wilson.

Joe Wilson didn't out his wife. Not until she'd already been throroughly outed by the Cheney/Rove/Libby machine.

Funny how it was Armitage that was first, and he wasn't much part of a Cheney pro-war cabal. Yet Armitage hardly ever gets mentioned.

Wilson's trip was a joke, set up by his wife, and designed to find nothing and not report on it as well.

But the fact remains, if Libby lied to the FBI and a grand Jury he deserves what he gets. I don't expect him to get pardoned, but we probably won't know for a while.

Ah, but the beauty is that eve of the next Inauguration Day will be Jan 19, 2009.

Yes it will be non-issue in '08.

And he will be pardoned Jan 19, 2009. Presuming the conviction doesn't win in appeal or that the appeal isn't yet being heard.

Jesus Christ the lengths you people will go to.

Of course there was tons of yellow cake found. H(ins)annity sez so but he never has time to get into it on his show any more.

Forged documents. Lying sources.

No WMDs - zip.

But some can't let go of it.

I was thinking no way ever, at first. Then I saw this and it made a little sense. I still think it's a long shot, since Bush doesn't seem to play a lot of open legal games, but it could happen. Aren't most pardons after the election and before the new president is sworn in? That makes it not such an election decision.

Just so.

I'd be more inclined to expect a pardon if he hadn't played the scapegoat. It can't have made those above him happy, and they sure don't seem to have sprung to his defense.

Enigma w/in a paradox.

All part of the planned plausible deniability.

The Vice-President of hte United States kept a copy of the Wilson article annotated by himself on his desk.


Show's a LOT of interest, makes him chief of the Cabal.

So, Armitage is just a wiser snake than Scooter.

Figures.

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."

George Bush Sr.

why just libby? Because it was carefully orchestrated so everyone would get off scott free and they figured the rah rah war stuff would keep (CHACHINGG!!) cheney as the most powerful man in the WH.

And bushlovers always want to cry "conspiracy theory". Of course theres no such thing as a conspiracy.

I really wonder how Libby's lawyers ended up with a WAPO jury foreman that lived by Russert and worked with Woodward to judge a case that was mostly reporters recollections against Libby's in conversations that weren't really germaine to who "outed" Plame, since from the start Fitzgerald KNEW it was Armitage.

Good question.

Nevertheless I don't know that that juror impacted the outcome.

What sunk Libby was not the reporters but the administration witnesses that testified about their discussions of Plame with Libby prior to the reporters.


Libby's lie that he had forgotten about Plame altogether and learned about her (from Russert, but it wouldn't matter who) as if he was "hearing it anew" was the whopper that was just too big for the jury to swallow.

If you're going to say you forgot, be like Hillary and Bill and forget everything. Libby was an idiot.

Bingo.

Most are. But the Democrat leadership seems keen to try to get Bush to commit to a no pardon pledge.

Screw them. After Bill Clinton's pardons and their lockstep defense of all things Clinton, Bush should do as he damn well pleases.

what's "the Democrat leadership"?

In this case Dean.

I heard Reid as well. The mighty midgets of the Dem party are getting tough.

The Democratic Party

I suppose he is the extra-Legislative-branch Democratic leader.

Farg the bastidges. Half of them have committed worse crimes, just not been caught yet.

Apparently the bastidges = Howard Dean.

Don't forget the ick, I mean ic.

as if he hasn't always?

Not as much as he could have, or perhaps should have.

Bears repeating.

And Armitage wasn't pro-war, which is the basis for the Democrat's assumptions. That it was all a premeditated leak to get an anti-war writer and the CIA worker that got him sent to Niger to do pretty much nothing and lie on returning home.

What bears repeating?

Let's say you work for a company and you're specifically instructed NOT to reveal information about the company to unauthorized personnel. You go ahead and do so. So does another employee. The company does an investigation and they ask you whether you told anyone outside the company any company 'secrets'. You deny doing so, tell some cowdoody story about being told by an outside party about a company 'secret', etc. It turns out you lied, and told wild stories to cover your ass. It also turns out that someone else in the company had spilled the beans earlier.

Will you get fired, or not? Will it matter to the company that you weren't the first one to 'spill the beans'? Will the fact that you lied and misled the company's investigation NOT matter?



I would like you to sincerely tell me if you actually believe the above cowdoody, or whether it is one of those situations where, having been pissed off by the Democrats' cowdoody, you're willing to peddle the other side's cowdoody to achieve some balance and revenge.

Because once armitage "outed" (assuming she was covert) Plame, then it is impossible for anyone else to "out" Plame.
Once Fitz found out that Armitage was Novak's source, the case against Libby should have been dropped.
Libby should never have been put into a position to defend himself beyond that point.
Your analogy is flawed.

Libby probably did still lie, there isn't much defense on that, but the lie wasn't about the supposed crime, since somebody else committed the crime. (if it was one, which is uncertain) These things happen more often than the media wants to let on. I've linked to it before, but somehow there isn't much vigorous defense of Libby from the politicians, only the alternative media and some pundits and bloggers.

All the "big" RW sites are on it, plus the WSJ, New York Sun, NY Post, etc.

There's no payoff for the Republican pols to support Libby at this time, and no way for them (other than Bush) to affect the outcome anyway.

Ehm, I don't think so.

Fitz. thought otherwise, and has made the case repeatedly. The presiding judge heard the same arguments and agreed with Fitz.

The first premise of your retort is false.

I can multiply the analogies, and they all come to the same conclusions: if you reveal the 'clandestine' status of someone to an unauthorized-to-receive such information, and then you lie to and mislead the competent authorities investigating unauthorized revelations of the clandestine status of someone, you're still guilty, notwithstanding that someone else ALSO did so and that it was the latter whose unauthorized recipient publicizes the 'classified' information.

The question was not about WHO told Novak and when. It was WHO TOLD WHOM something which the latter had no right to be told/know. Libby TOLD, repeatedly, something he shouldn't have told to people he was legally barred from telling. And then, he lied to and misled the official investigators who were looking into it.

He was "guilty as sin" of lying to and misleading the official investigators (including the grand jury), from beginning to end. Armitage is NOT guilty of lying to and misleading the official investigators (including the grand jury). That's it.

If WJC was guilty, and he was, so is Libby. Much more so.



The hell he didn't commit the crime. He did. He ALSO commited the crime of perjury, obstruction of justice etc., the four counts for which he was found guilty by the jury.

He outright lied and actively misled the investigators, including the grand jury. Repeatedly. He took a gamble and he lost.

That's why I expect no pardon in the near term, and Bush to comment very little on it. See where the court goes and worry about it later. The war is more important and a win on that and he can pardon Libby on his way out the door if he chooses. It's below the radar to a lot of people right now, and Bush or Cheney will both be out of office soon enough.

Personally, I won't consider a pardon of Libby by W as he's leaving office even close to as egregious as his father's pardoning of all the Iran-Contra crooks, traitors and criminals.

Like Bill Clinton, and Clinton got off. It has to be about something, and so far even Fitz couldn't find anything but the lie about an outing that had already been done by someone else.

But as a prosecutor he had to have something.

Whoever voted within a day is already out. I'm beginning to think no pardon ever. I'd rather the Border Patrol agents that shot a fleeing felon get pardoned. Yesterday or earlier.

I'd at least like to see some really worthy pardons included when they give Libby his.