He's the Decider, See?

Gee. I never saw this coming.

President Bush, once again throwing the rule of law out in the trash to cater to his rabid base, has commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. Both MSNBC and CNN are reporting this.

. . .

That George Bush commuted Libby’s sentence just as he returned from a trip to his father’s family compound in Maine, ran into the White House away from the press and refused to answer any questions about his own involvement in the case, his own interview with Patrick Fitzgerald and federal investigators, and any remaining questions that still hang out there about the cloud over Dick Cheney underscores the craven and disrespectful conduct of the Bush Administration from start to finish...

The Rule of the Lawless

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

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I have been having tiffs with my daughter all morning. She's five. She doesn't understand why the rules are different for her than they are for me. Like why I'm allowed to have beverages in the living room (the coffee goes everywhere I do) and she isn't. This morning I even resorted to the dreaded, "Because I said so." I swore I'd never do that. Drove me nuts when I was a kid. But what can I say? Her hands are very small and she spills things. But she's at that age; testing limits like mad. And some things just can't be justified to her tiny, five-year-old brain. So I understand exactly how Paul Wolfowitz feels.

Everything about the Bush Administration makes perfect sense if you understand that they are the parents, while we -- and by "we" I mean the entire rest of the world -- are the children. So Paul explained to the World Bank investigating committee that he had to give Shaha everything she asked for because he's pussy-whipped. The committee just simply needs to understand that there are things that happen between a mommy and a daddy that are private and that the children really don't need to know about. That's what locks on bedroom doors are for. His mistake, if anything, was in not making sure the door was securely locked.

There are larger considerations here that have to do with the importance of the Bush Administration's unhampered ability to parent and protect the world.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said some board members hope a strong statement of dissatisfaction would persuade the Bush administration to withdraw support for Wolfowitz. But the White House views the stakes as larger than control of the World Bank, said a senior administration official, with U.S. resolve and power on the line -- in particular the longstanding right of the United States to name the head of the institution. [emphasis added]

In an interview with Fox News, Vice President Cheney called Wolfowitz "a very good president of the World Bank," adding, "I hope he will be able to continue."

See, Vice Daddy Cheney has faith in him. That's all we need to know.

It's like Daddy-hopeful Fred Thompson explained recently:

The principles you have been defending since 1981. For Americans, these are found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They include a recognition of God and the fact there are certain rights that come from Him and not the government.

Which is why it's so unfortunate that Scooter Libby was prosecuted for perjury:

The other man is in a less lofty position. After years of sacrifice and service to his country, he sits at home with his wife and two children awaiting a prison sentence. His name is Scooter Libby.

I didn't know Scooter Libby, but I did know something about this intersection of law, politics, special counsels and intelligence. And it was obvious to me that what was happening was not right. So I called him to see what I could do to help, and along the way we became friends. You know the rest of the story: a D.C. jury convicted him. . . . I have called for a pardon for Scooter Libby.

Now, yes, on the surface, this looks like a contradiction. That's why lesser minds like Glenn Greenwald are confused by Thompson's speech. But all we really need to know is that the law issues from God, and God said: "Honor thy father and mother." See? Simple. That's why Uncle Scooter's unfair prosecution has become a rallying cry for all those Daddy-hopefuls, and why he will never see the inside of a jail cell.

It's like with Alberto Gonzales:

At a hearing last week before the House Judiciary Committee, he evaded precise answers and professed a poor memory, while insisting that the decision to sack the prosecutors was utterly sound. The apparent administration hope is that by denying and stonewalling, Gonzales can not only save his job but eventually exhaust all interest in the matter.

I can't even tell you how many times I've tried that. Word to the wise, though, if Congress is anything like my daughter, they can wear you down. Mind like a steel trap, my daughter, and when she sets it on, let's say, ice cream... relentless. Let's hope for poor Alberto's sake that "object permanence" is not as thoroughly developed in John Conyers as it is in my daughter.

Think of Alberto as a teen-aged son; all be it an adopted one. He's a good son. He keeps the younger kiddies in line, and protects the family. That's how it's supposed to be... because... because I said so.

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do." -- Daddy-Hopeful Rudolph Giuliani

Riza's Iraq Trip NOT A Boondoggle

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

A Pentagon panel has cleared Paul Wolfowitz in its investigation of his involvement in his girlfriend's Iraq junket.

Paul Wolfowitz, while serving as deputy secretary of defense, personally recommended that his companion, Shaha Ali Riza, be awarded a contract for travel to Iraq in 2003 to advise on setting up a new government, says a previously undisclosed inquiry by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The inquiry, as described by a senior Pentagon official, concluded that there was no wrongdoing in Wolfowitz's role in the hiring of Riza by the Science Applications International Corporation, a Pentagon contractor, because Riza had the expertise required to advise on the role of women in Islamic countries.

The investigators also found that Wolfowitz, now president of the World Bank, had not exerted improper influence in Riza's hiring. Earlier this week, Science Applications International said an unidentified Defense Department official had directed that she be hired. She had been a World Bank employee for five years at the time.

That Wolfowitz's girlfriend was hired by DOD contractor SAIC to go to Iraq was reported in the New York Times earlier this week.

The Defense Department directed a private contractor in 2003 to hire Shaha Ali Riza, a World Bank employee and the companion of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense, to spend a month studying issues related to setting up a new government in Iraq, the contractor said Monday.

The contractor, Science Applications International Corporation, or SAIC, said that it had been directed to hire Ms. Riza by the office of the under secretary for policy. The head of that office at the time was Douglas J. Feith, who reported to Mr. Wolfowitz.

After her trip to Iraq, Ms. Riza briefed members of the executive board of the World Bank on efforts to rebuild after the American invasion and specifically on the status of Iraqi women, according to Ms. Riza’s supervisor at the time.

As was the fact that the assignment took her well outside of her World Bank job's purview.

It was not clear why the Pentagon specifically asked for Ms. Riza to travel to Iraq. At the time, however, the World Bank did not have a relationship with Iraq. Normal bank rules do not allow the bank to provide economic assistance to an area under military occupation.

Ms. Riza’s trip raised concerns among some bank officials, who said they did not know under whose auspices she had traveled to Iraq at a time when it was against bank policy for its officials to go there.

Bank officials said, however, that after the ouster of Mr. Hussein, the Bush administration tried to get the bank to help assist in the redevelopment of Iraq and that it was trying to involve the United Nations in the occupation to provide a rationale for the bank’s assistance.

The irony is just a tad hard to miss. This maneuver issued from the same neoconservative cabal that moved heaven and earth to destroy Ambassador Paul Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame Wilson because of supposed nepotism. But then, Wilson's findings in Niger discredited a key element in their plan for war in Iraq.

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper has written that he was told by Karl Rove on July 11 "don't get too far out on Wilson" because information was going to be declassified soon that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and findings. Cooper also wrote that Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the agency on weapons of mass destruction and that "she was responsible for sending Wilson."

This Washington Post reporter spoke the next day to an administration official, who talked on the condition of anonymity, and was told in substance "that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction," as reported in an Oct. 14 article.

Of course the nepotistic boondoggle charge was as false as the rest of the case for war.

Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report.

The 2002 mission grew out of a request by Vice President Cheney on Feb. 12 for more information about a Defense Intelligence Agency report he had received that day, according to a 2004 report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. An aide to Cheney would later say he did not realize at the time that this request would generate such a trip.

Wilson maintains that his wife was asked that day by one of her bosses to write a memo about his credentials for the mission--after they had selected him. That memo apparently was included in a cable to officials in Africa seeking concurrence with the choice of Wilson, the Senate report said.

So if you're trying to keep up with the logic here, it's pretty simple. Fact finding missions that advance the Administration's aims are good, even if they are recommended by the paramours of those who undertake them. Fact finding missions that disprove the Administration's assertions are bad, even when they come at the behest of officials other than the spouses of those who undertake them. So bad that the White House feels fully justified in assassinating the character of both husband and wife, ruining the wife's career, and undermining the CIA's efforts to track WMD. It comes down to priorities.

Indeed, the White House continues to affirm its support of Mr. Wolfowitz, in spite of nepotistic machinations that have resulted in a massive job promotion and, it appears, the highly unusual action of granting security clearance to a foreign national, who holds no other such classification.

Riza, who is not a U.S. citizen, had to receive a security clearance in order to work at the State Department. Who intervened? It is not unusual to have British or French midlevel officers at the department on exchange programs, but they receive security clearances based on the clearances they already have with their host governments. Granting a foreign national who is detailed from an international organization a security clearance, however, is extraordinary, even unprecedented. So how could this clearance have been granted?

State Department officials familiar with the details of this matter confirmed to me that Shaha Ali Riza was detailed to the State Department and had unescorted access while working for Elizabeth Cheney. Access to the building requires a national security clearance or permanent escort by a person with such a clearance. But the State Department has no record of having issued a national security clearance to Riza.

As of this writing, Wolfowitz still has his World Bank job. That may change as the World Bank's board expands its investigation of Wolfowitz to include the hiring and contracts of his closest advisers. Apparently he's surrounded himself with Bush Administration insiders.

Did I mention that the position Wolfowitz finagled for his lady love reports to the Vice President's daughter? I've said it before. I'll say it again. It's the hypocrisy, stupid.

Crime and Punishment

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Sayeth Frank Rich:

EVEN by Washington’s standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby. Of course he will.

A president who tries to void laws he doesn’t like by encumbering them with “signing statements” and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn’t going to start playing by the rules now. His assertion last week that he is “pretty much going to stay out of” the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld. The only real question about the pardon is whether Mr. Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans’ political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008.

Rich goes on to say, in the incisive prose that the New York Times has hidden behind the wall, that Libby knows too well where all the bodies are buried to be cut loose. Cheney's Cheney was there when the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) schemed to land us in the debacle that is Operation Endless Bloody Occupation.

Over at Newsweek Michael Isikoff and Richard Wolffe engage in some of that fatuous speculation.

Out of obligation and duty, Cheney is almost certain to press Bush to pardon his close friend and protégé.

But don't count on Bush to go along—at least not yet. Bush is not big on pardons. In his first six years as president, he has granted just 113, fewer than any president in the last 100 years, says Margaret Love, a former Justice Department pardon attorney. At his first press conference as president in February 2001, Bush set himself apart from Bill Clinton, who had caused a stir with several controversial pardons in his final days. When it came to granting pardons, Bush said, "I'll have the highest of high standards."

The president can pardon anyone at any time. But Bush has abided by long-standing Justice guidelines that spell out who should be eligible. Those rules say a person shouldn't even be considered for a pardon until five years after he's completed his sentence. "I know the way he's approached pardons," says Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan. "If you boil it down, it's two things. One, that they serve their time. And two, that they express remorse for the crime." By those standards, Libby doesn't make the cut, especially if he pursues an appeal and continues to insist he did nothing wrong.

What Isikoff and Wolf don't even address is that Bush has a long history as a merciless criminal justice enthusiast. As Governor of Texas he presided over a record 152 executions, including that of a mentally retarded man. Soft on crime he's not.

Yet, according to Isikoff and Wolffe, former White House aides expect him to pardon Libby.

Fatuous debate indeed. There is no doubt that Bush will pardon Libby. The only subject for discussion is just how big a hypocrite that makes him.

Merry Fitzmas, Everybody!

GUILTY!

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room. His lawyer, Theodore Wells, said they were "very disappointed" with the verdict.

They'll appeal. And who knows, Bush may pardon him. God knows this administration cares nothing about appearances, but for today, I'm celebrating. Oh, yeah!

Harbingers of Watergate Redux

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Is it just me or is it too eerie that E. Howard Hunt has died on the same day that Scooter Libby's trial kicked off. And adding insult to injury, Bush is right now delivering his SOTU speech with the lowest poll numbers since Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal.

As per the New York Times:

“This fellow Hunt,” President Richard M. Nixon muttered a few days after the June 1972 break-in, “he knows too damn much.”

That's the ultimate danger for administrations that avoid transparency at all costs and plot nefariously behind closed doors. Conspiracies eventually unwind; right down to the ugly knot. Then it's every man for himself. Today Scooter Libby threw the Bush Administration under a bus.

"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling Libby's end of the conversation. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."

Meanwhile Booman has written another lucid, compelling argument for the inescapable wisdom of impeachment. Maybe I'm superstitious, but I think it's inevitable.

Judith Miller Worries About Blogger Integrity

Judith Miller has stopped drinking the Neocon Kool-Aid and is now clear headed enough to worry about the damage bloggers can do.

The blurring of entertainment and news and the relaxing of journalistic standards can be seen in online bloggers who are critical of people without giving them an opportunity to respond or who don't post corrections when they learn that what they have posted is wrong, she said.

"I'm worried about bloggers," she said. "(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it's repeated as fact."

Gosh. I don't know if we can parrot the talking points of shady political insiders and land the nation in an illegal war, but then we don't have the New York Times as a platform for our unverified rumors do we?

I think it's a little late in the game for the credulous Miss Miller to talk about journalistic vigilance.