Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Pushing Back

Via Andrew Sullivan, here's Orin Kerr pushing back against the wingnut commentary on both the blogosphere and the TV that the case against Scooter Libby was largely a Democratic witch hunt meant to destroy a Republican administration:

I find this argument seriously bizarre. As I understand it, Bush political appointee James Comey named Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Fitzgerald filed an indictment and went to trial before Bush political appointee Reggie Walton. A jury convicted Libby, and Bush political appointee Walton sentenced him. At sentencing, Bush political appointee Judge Walton described the evidence against Libby as "overwhelming" and concluded that a 30-month sentence was appropriate. And yet the claim, as I understand it, is that the Libby prosecution was the work of political enemies who were just trying to hurt the Bush Administration.

It is particularly absurd that many of the same conservatives and Republicans who argued for a Libby pardon and who are cheering the commutation of his sentence by Bush were arguing for Bill Clinton's impeachment back in 1998 for the same crime - perjury.

Dishonest and hypocritical beyond belief. But that's where the conservative movement has gone these days. Nothing matters but maintaining power, enriching your cronies, and paying off your political allies and friends with contracts, favors and commutations. If the Libby case doesn't convince you of this, let me remind you about Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, Tom Delay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Mark Foley, J. Steven Griles, Timothy Flanigan, Italia Federici, Tony Rudy, David Safavian, Michael Scanlon, Neil Volz, Mark Zachares, Ralph Reed, Conrad Burns, the good folks at Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root, and all the other Bush/Rove/Delay cronies who have enriched themselves off the public trough for the last 7 years.

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