Help Me Out Here
by sarabeth at 5:21 pm on July 2nd, 2007 in Bush Man Date, PlamegateSomeone will have to explain this commutation thing to me.
Why commute the sentence instead of just issuing a pardon?
There are clearly people on the right who will see the commutation as a partial betrayal, who will be angry that Bush didn’t go the whole hog and pardon him.
Does Bush — or whoever does the thinking for him these days, Cheney or Rove or Barney — really think there are people on the left who would have been offended by a pardon but who are okay with a commutation?
So what sense does the commutation make? It may allow them to sell what Bush did as less drastic or less controversial than a pardon. But, at the end of the day, how does it help you to be able to spin it that way, if it’s not going to change any attitudes? If all that will happen at the end of the day is that some people are more mad (than they would have been with a pardon) and no one is less mad, then what the eff did you gain?
Sumguy wrote:
Essentially the sentence called for jail time plus a cash fine.
What Bush did by commuting Libby’s sentence is he killed the jail time but left the fine in place.
A pardon would have voided both the jail time and fine.
Perhaps the Prez thinks Libby deserved getting his hand slapped for screwing up.. but not the actual embarrassment of jail time.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 5:43 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
i think at this point everyone knows those facts.
(it was originally jail time plus fine plus 2 years probation. the probation also still stands.)
none of this addresses the question i raised.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 7:11 pm ¶
matt wrote:
the spin is that this is “splitting the baby.” he still gets punished, just not jail. as if the money won’t come out of his well-funded defense account.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 7:13 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
i know that’s the spin, but how does spinning it this way help if part of the right is still mad that it was only a commutation and not the pardon he richly deserved, and the left sees a commutation as as bad as a pardon?
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 7:36 pm ¶
matt wrote:
also:
this is fucking disgusting.
as is this from jimc’s saviour, lobbyist fred thompson:
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 7:38 pm ¶
matt wrote:
it just doesn’t matter any more. bush has said that he didn’t care if it was just him, laura and barney. so what if a few percent of the 30% of dead enders give up on him? he certainly doesn’t care.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 7:46 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
#6 does nothing to address my point: with a pardon he wouldn’t even have lost a few percent of those 30%; from his point of view, why didn’t a pardon bea? a commutation.
but #5 is a very satisfactory answer to my question.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 8:01 pm ¶
matt wrote:
contagious
well, he would have lost some of the media, and the intensity of the 70% would have been higher.
Posted 02 Jul 2007 at 8:06 pm ¶