Scooter's guilty; who cares?
OK, we have Ann the Outrageous weighing in on the Libby trial. And yes, it was a miscarriage of justice, a political trial, and I should be upset. But I'm not. Libby was convicted of the same "crime" as Martha Stewart: lying about a non-crime. But there was a difference: Martha was minding her own business, doing what Martha does: making money. Libby was involved in government, and this government in particular. We don't get too upset when somebody in an organized crime syndicate gets whacked in the course of doing business; we figure that if he didn't want to get whacked, he shouldn't have been involved in organized crime. The same applies to government (even if we sidestep the question of whether government is an organized crime syndicate). In the grand scheme of things, some guy with a name like an Ayn Rand villain having to do some time is about as important as Anna Nicole Smith. In a D.C. whose main urban-design problem is far too few lamp posts for the number of people who deserve them, what happened to Libby pales in comparison to the case of a Kathryn Johnson or Cory Maye, people who were minding their own business until the State came in and destroyed their lives. I feel bad for Libby's family, though.
Coulter's main point is that Republicans need to do unto others as they have been done by. If they don't (and it's arguable that they do and have; some would include Whitewater and the Clinton impeachment), the reason is that they still care about the country, not because they're gutless. Well, bring it on, I say. Let's have both parties brawling in the courts. Let's have President Rodham try Bush for war crimes, then the 'Pugs can impeach Hillary for campaign finance violations (assuming Peter Paul doesn't take a walk in Ft. Marcy Park first). You want partisanship, beotch, you can watch it bring the country to its knees. Then maybe people will get rid of both of the two evils.
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: March 8, 2007 05:34 PM
I had to laugh when she said Clinton was not prosecuted--I seem to remember something about impeachment. And her description of the Fitzgerald investigation is remarkably accurate as a description of the whole Whitewater mess.
And of course, we now have her ringing declaration that as long you can cop a nolo contendere plea, no crime was ever charged.
For her sake, I hope she actually lives in that Palm Beach house, since she claims homestead exemption for the property tax. Given the location, and the price she paid, it must be rather small, or in poor condition. And if she does live there, she must have been livid. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I believe the house is in the congressional district which was Clay Shaw's (stalwart but relatively left leaning for a Republican, which is why he survived so long) until last fall, when it became Ron Klein's--an ultraliberal Democrat.
But truly, anyone who demanded Clinton be impeached/convicted should be defending Libby's prosecution, and anyone who decried Clinton's impeachment should be doing the same in Libby's behalf. But that would be expecting politicians to be honest, and cows to fly.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: March 9, 2007 09:13 AM
Yep, I think you have that right. As much as I despise the Clintoons, I was really uncomfortable at the time with the notion of removing a President for lying about something which anyone with any sense of shame at all WOULD lie about.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: March 9, 2007 12:53 PM
And he didn't actually lie (at least, when he came up with that "it depends on the meaning of is" statement), just grandly obfuscate. When you break down what he said into normal English, it comes out (roughly): "It depends on how you define that word. If you define it the special way I want you to use, I didn't have sex with Monica. [literally true, because his special definition ruled out oral sex] And if you define another way, the way most people define it,--well, I'm not going to tell you." IOW, I didn't have penile-vaginal intercourse with her, and I'm not saying anything more.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: March 9, 2007 01:01 PM
I observe that it took a lawyer to parse that statement, LOL!