| A look back in White House stance on a possible pardon of Scooter Libby |
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| Written by Daniel Shin | |||
| Monday, 02 July 2007 14:10 | |||
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With the entire political spectrum reacting to Scooter Libby's commuting of his sentence, my casual search in the White House website reveals the careless and dismissive tone from the Office of the Press Secretary in regards to the possibility of a Libby pardon.
I am shocked that President Bush chose political gain over the judicial process when he commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence. To tell the truth, I never knew that Presidents had the power to “commute” sentence of an individual today. I guess we are seeing some rarity in the limits of the power of the President. President Bush effectively sold his last bit of integrity to secure political power in his faltering and growingly rebellious base. He claims that the sentencing of Scooter Libby was harsh and inappropriate, but it begs the question, why did then a Bush-appointed judge gave such a “harsh” sentence? Regardless, I took the liberty to search articles relating to Scooter Libby on the White House website, and during the search I found an interesting remark that Ms. Dana Perino of the Office of the Press Secretary made in regards to the development in the Scooter Libby’s case. Note that this was March 6, 2007. (White House webpage)
Did Ms. Perino say, “a wildly hypothetical situation” for a pardon? Many conservatives were pushing for such an outcome, and all due respect for Ms. Perino (She seems to be such a nice person) I think it is a little careless to sweep such a possibility as wildly hypothetical. Let the briefing continue….
Either the President Bush kept the entire Office of the Press Secretary in the dark or she is deliberately trying to clear away from the topic, but in either case it shows the lack of delicacy that Ms. Perino was handling the questions as we see how these events transformed to the commuting of Scooter Libby’s ordeal in prison. To be honest, I think commuting of Libby’s sentence was more hypothetical than a whole pardon, because I have not heard from anyone to talk about a commuting possibility while the Republican Presidential candidates were boasting that they would pardon Libby if they were President. What a crazy year it has already developing….
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