Scooter Scoots

It's not really a big surprise that Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence---the biggest surprise may be that it took him so long to get to it---but is it a miscarriage of justice, a overstepping of his bounds, a blatantly biased political decision? Well, of course! As Bob Cesca said in the Huffington Post:

No, the president's decision had everything to do with: 1) a likely deal between the vice president and Libby's attorneys in which Libby promised to keep the scuttlebutt away from Vice President Cheney in exchange for the VPOTUS promising to see what he could do about the sentence; and 2) Scooter Libby isn't poor, black or retarded.

That's it.

If Scooter Libby had been some unfortunate nobody who was either black or poor or retarded or WHOOPS!, all three, the president would've merely skimmed the Gonzo Notes and remarked, "He's a retarded and his first name is 'I. Lewis Scooter'? Deny. ACK! I swallowed another coin."

Sadly and seriously, in the president's universe -- shared by his thinning brigade of dittoheads (see above blog comments) -- the excessive punishments are reserved exclusively for people like Terry Washington: a man who lacked the ability to control his actions and communicate at a normal level; a man who was unable to comprehend what was going on around him. In other words, a man who was clearly more competent than the president.

Paul Begala also comments there:

Tough enough to execute Karla Fay Tucker -- and then laugh about it. Tough enough to sign a death warrant for a man whose lawyer slept through the trial -- and then snicker when asked about it in a debate. Even tough enough to execute a great-grandmother who murdered her husband -- after he abused her. A friend of mine at the time asked Bush to commute her sentence, telling him, "Betty Lou ain't a threat to no one she ain't married to." No dice.

Mr. Bush is tough enough to invade a country that was no risk to America, causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and shedding precious American blood in the process. Tough enough to sanction torture. Tough enough to order an American citizen arrested and held without trial.

But if you're rich and right-wing and Republican, George is a real softie. As George W. Bush demonstrated in giving Scooter Libby a Get Out of Jail Free Card, he is only compassionate to conservatives.

This is not the America we had when Bush started his nightmare run as chief executive. It is an America where the people George Bush identifies with and understands, the rich, privileged, and Republican, get the breaks. Everyone else gets broken.