1 Sentence

It's only the first, and there's always the chance the crime lord will pardon I mean break his soldier out of prison, but unless that happens it's just 30 days before Irving Libby will be scoot-scoot-scootering off to the poky for two and a half well-deserved years (eligible for release after two) of incarceration.

Then, $250,000 and two years of parole later, he'll have paid his debt to society for having perjured himself to a Federal agent, specifically lying to the FBI, a crime that would not be engendering calls for Presidential pardons if you or I had committed it.

Here's Irving doing the perp walk back from the sentencing. The judge seems disinclined to allow Irving to remain free pending appeal. So he has 30 days before walking in like Paris, only more dangerous to our Republic.

Irving Lewis Libby is a villain in the annals of history. His treasonous behavior, due it appears to personal and political loyalties over love of country, or perhaps the confusion of the two, has led us into a disastrous trumped-up war of choice, war of aggression, war of pure tragedy. He's guilty of the worst kind of idealism, the narcissistic one. Whether or not narcissistic to himself, and I don't have any doubts, certainly narcissistic to his Neoconservatism, his Neocon allies here and abroad, and most frighteningly to his liege, Richard Herbert Cheney.

Lewis is a Frank Nitti- type henchman figure, only much worse at his job. I can understand why his fellow scofflaws had sent the judge letters of support -- after all, like the mob, they value loyalty over law -- but while you expect Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, it's a little more unnerving to see the unindicted war criminal who brought us Christmas bombings in Cambodia, Henry Kissenger linking the generations, and how sad to see former rockin' Dem James Carville's name thrown in via his wife, GOP dragon lady Mary Matalin.

Obstructing a federal probe. We're the ones who deserve the sympathy -- the American people, who sometimes against great and abused power only have the Constitution written by our Founding Fathers to aid us. Simple, moral, well-thought out, easy for a layperson to understand -- that's the beauty of our Constitution.

In the classic post-Vietnam War picture, The Deer Hunter, there's a key line uttered by DeNiro as an admonishment to the late great John Cazale:

Michael: Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain't something else. This is this. From now on, you're on your own.

This isn't a great noble heroic man. Look at all the dead in Iraq, us and their civilians, which is 99% of who's getting killed over there. The ends don't justify the means; the means just stoke the corruption of the ends.

This is this, Irving. This is a high crime, nothing else. We all know your bosses were directing the action, that of course they knew because it was their will and maybe someday they'll be punished, too, but you're the villain who carried it out.

We have laws like this because lying to a policeman is bad. We, as a society, have a vested interest in discouraging such actions, because it undermines the fundamental rule of law and, should it go unchecked, can lead to the downfall of the Republic.

You don't get to choose who gets to lie to the FBI, Scooter. That's not a power of yours under the Constitution, nor should it be.

This is this. From now on, Irving, be a man. Be on your own.