Thursday, March 08, 2007

I Beg Your Pardon

Before anyone opens their mouth about a pardon, just answer one question: "Is it sometimes o.k. to lie to a Federal investigator, i.e. a Federal prosecutor or FBI agent?"

If you answered No, move on to "No Pardon".

If you answered Yes, then: "Who gets to decide when it's o.k. to lie while under Oath to a Federal investigator working to uncover the truth in an alleged crime?"

Do you?

Do I?

Do we let Dick Cheney be the one guy who decides for everyone?

Like a king?

Sam Seder breaks it down:
I think Libby is sort of like a gateway drug for Conservatives to truth. And if they accept the fact that Scooter Libby was convicted of these crimes, then they have to ask, well, why did he lie? Who was he protecting? Well, obviously we saw in the trial he was protecting Dick Cheney. And then the question becomes, why was Dick Cheney so obsessed with smearing Joe Wilson over these charges that he supposedly thought were real about yellowcake uranium.

So I think at the end of the day, it's a question of Conservatives; they just don't want to go down that road, because if they come to that conclusion that many Americans have, over 50% certainly of the country, that the Bush Administration lied us into the War in Iraq.
The bottom line is that sure, other guys should have been indicted as well, but their criminal conspiracy was successful enough that there was only sufficient evidence to prosecute the designated fall guy. Enough guilt for him. But any further investigation and prosecution is up to the new Democratic Congress.

Meet (my very own) Congressman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).


Crossposted to The Daily Reel.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's please hope that justice still exists because it's rarely visible. The only true justice for Bush and Cheney is both jail and giving their investments to soldiers returning home.
Would it work that when paying our taxes we got to choose where we wanted that money to go, ie: schools, helping the homeless, etc.? Instead of our tax money going to the deep pockets of our greedy "representatives"? Wouldn't that be true democracy?

Mark Netter said...

I'm not sure it's a practical solution -- who has the time to research all that! This is the reason we vote in a representative democracy, so everyone doesn't have to be an expert.

However, the jail option for B/C is an intriguing one...

Heather said...

I think it's a responsibility of living in a democracy to be informed and it could be structured so that it was in categories, at least. Impracticality? Maybe, but it's a little inconvenience to keep our ineffective system from running amok as it is now.
How much does it f-ing cost to prosecute these bastards? Aren't our tax dollars being wasted because some of us are too lazy to find out or too uninterested to process the facts? Wouldn't it be for the benefit of all to have a checklist on our tax forms of optional categories of where we would like to see our money spent? It would be interesting: defense, schools, municipalities, salaries, etc. Would it change the minds of our representatives. Our current voting ballots are often too confusing for even me, a Berkeley grad, to understand. I'm not saying to get rid of our current system but just to add to it. Are the current "checks and balances" working?