Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

I was on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude tonight

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talking about Scooter Libby, and about the just-completed Term of the Supreme Court.  As always, there were a couple of points I wish I’d gotten in.  But you do what you can.

Let’s go to the tape …

Part 1 (Libby)

Part 2 (Supreme Court)

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Comments

  1. I don’t know how one sits quietly and politely through Robert Roughsedge’s smug mixture of falsehoods and Clinton crap. There must be lots of conservatives with humongous reserves of Clinton gotchas that ooze forth as from dirty, hypersaturated sponges on the slightest contact. With quantity substituting for accuracy, the ooze may even convince the unwary.

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    What an unfriendly medium television is for playing Gotcha-rama when one cares about truth.

  2. The important point to all this “Clinton did it too” BS is that Clinton was not convicted.

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    “the Senate rejected 55-45 the first article of impeachment charging Clinton lied under oath in his August 17 grand jury testimony. The second article, which alleged the president obstructed justice in his attempt to cover up his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, failed on a 50-50 vote.” http://www.cnn.com/A…

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    Scooter, was convicted of a FELONY (I keep hearing the noise machine say it was a misdemeanor which is a lie) and sentenced, then commuted, and may eventually be pardoned. I guess the Libby apologist, including the President, really don’t believe in the Constitution (which defines the terms for impeachment) or due process of law after all. Of course we already knew that.

  3. It was an interesting set of arguments.  I think Roughsedge deserved to be thrashed, and it didn’t materialize.  When Roughsedge first spoke, in typical partisan style this alleged attorney brought Bill Clinton into the discussion.

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    My immediate thought, and I was waiting for the argument to come forth, was:

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    “Bill Clinton didn’t pardon anyone who was involved in a crime that he may have committed.  This president commuted the sentence of a member of his inner circle who clearly has knowledge of criminal acts that occurred either at the behest of the vice president and very possibly Bush.  The president should recuse himself rather than intervene in Libby’s case.  By stepping in, Bush has engaged in a clear conflict of interests and has, implicitly, obstructed further justice. 

    I think Congress should take this instance into consideration and pass a law that restricts the president’s pardon power to individuals who are not members of his/her administration.  If law won’t do, perhaps a constitutional amendment is needed. 

    This maladministration continues to push and break the boundaries of normalcy that most Americans would consider unnecessary to argue.  Ironically the current maladministration, in its attempts to expand power, has invited severe legislative restriction against presidential authority.  Once this mal-administration is de-throned, and hopefully sooner than by default, the changes that congress ought to (and likely will) bring might make what happened to correct the abuses of the Nixon maladministration appear weak.”.

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    This statement did not come, although Renee Lander managed to finally bring forth an ancillary point, and in the end said of Hillary Clinton, “her husband did not pardon anyone who worked for his administration”.  Regardless, this allowed an argument about what really happened.  The fact that no one knows (but the inferences do seem to be quite strong) suggests that pardon authority be limited, period.  The mal-administration does not have the ethics, morals, or judgment to handle even this and, given the American electorate, 51% of who lack the basic skills to read a newspaper and who think the Earth is 6,000 years old, it’s needed.

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    The trap set by Roughsedge was invoking Clinton and he knew what he was doing: framing the argument.  This is a lawyer trick and one that the current mal-administration uses frequently to their advantage.

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    Granted, Mark Rich, invoked by Roughsedge, has marginal conflict of interests bearing, however I would doubt that a restriction against pardoning political contributors would stand. 

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    Anyway, good show, but try not to get caught next time.

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    ps: he’s a “criminal defense attorney?”.  Good luck to his clients.

    • The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

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      That argument is a non-starter. 

      • …and among us lawyers there’s always a but, query whether a president, after having issued a pardon, and after having left office, might be subject to a charge of obstruction of justice because of the pardon.

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        It’s not going to happen of course.  Republicans do it, as do Democrats.  It’s incestuous.

  4. that the best retort to the questions of Clinton’s pardons was stating that he was probably wrong in issuing some them and then following up with the question –  Now will you admit that Bush is wrong here?

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    I can’t remember where I head it but someone made that point that Paris Hilton served more time than Libby.

  5. I think the Libby story is basically about responsibility. George W. Bush doesn’t want to take responsibility for anything that happens on his watch: 9/11, Guantanamo, the botched invasion of Iraq, the millions of Americans without health insurance. This is just the latest example.

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    The way to deal with a John Birch Society/anti-fluoridated water campaigner like Roughsedge is to marginalize him: irresponsible cracked-out Bush-supporting Republicans want to change the subject, responsible Republicans discuss the issue.

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    All that said, I don’t know why anyone would defend Hillary for her comment. Of course Bill Clinton’s end of term pardons were cronyism. They were just as indefensible as this one, in MHO. Her sound bite was absurd.

  6. I find it humorous that both sides in this discussion would like to take the high ground, instead of admitting that both Bush and Clinton are just mealy-mouthed politicians.  For goodness sake, we know what Bush is, but let’s not make a paragon of virtue out of Billie Boy.

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