Context

I wish I were more angry about this, I really do.

But despite my intense dislike for the Bush Administration, it seems to me that Libby was wrongfully convicted in the first place. Yes, I hate the Bushies too. But this strikes me as the right outcome to an overzealous prosecution.

I wish people *could* be more specific about the allegations of torture, but when extraordinary rendition is the rule and not the exception, and when mercenaries are hired to do dirty work so that our own military cannot be held liable, I don't think it will be possible for us to get an accurate picture of anything this administration has done or authorized to be done until long after they're buried and people with consciences begin writing their memoires.

We'll be dealing with the fallout from this hellish crew for decades.

Irony overload. Andrew's all-too-true catalogue of our leader's depredations comes on July 3. Tomorrow, millions of Americans attending civic rituals will hear the reading of a document that features another litany of (much milder) offenses against law and decency, alleged against another George. It's a good thing the Signers didn't foresee what their descendants would be reduced to. They might have thrown up their hands and said, "Hey, let's go back to the King and work something out."

Good God, six straight posts on the Libby commutation? Is this really the equivalent of the Reichstag's Enabling Act of 1934, or Jar Jar Binks' nomination of Palpatine for emergency dictatorial authority?

Is this really the equivalent of the Reichstag's Enabling Act of 1934, or Jar Jar Binks' nomination of Palpatine for emergency dictatorial authority?

TMFKS-Thanks for making my day!

Seriously Rod, can we get back to talking about Muslims or the Gays again?

I'm sure there are specific examples of torture, but those are conducted in locations not disclosed; however, the general torture (of this administration) goes on and on before our very eyes.

Prediction for 2008: Scooter's appeals go nowhere. Bush grants a complete pardon for Libby *after* the November elections.

Why? A pardon at this stage could be used as a cudgel against Republican candidates. A commutation of the sentence works by prolonging the fiction that at least someone is being held responsible for something.

Libby goes on to earn a 5-10 fold higher salary in 2009 than he ever did while in government.*

*Honestly, 95+% of the US population would love to have the future job prospects and earning potential that Libby has, even after his conviction.

The idea of Hillary Clinton, who invoked "I don't recall" 46 times before a granfd jury being remotely upset is bordering on a joke. But Amiericans love 2nd acts.

Want to talk "Apocalpyse", I give you this. In essnece, either understand that war is a filthy business to be undertaken as a last resort with ill humor and a ahrd heart, or don't bother. the guys who firebombed Dresden and nuked Hiroshima weren't worried about hearts and minds. The failure of Bush is to understand there's no polite way to do this, and to pretend othewise is folly.

"It's impossible for words... to describe... what is necessary... to those... who do not know... what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror... are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate... some children. We'd left the camp... after we had inoculated the children for polio. And this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn't say. We went back there... and they had come and hacked off... every inoculated arm. There they were, in a pile-- a pile of... little arms. And I remember... I-I-- I cried. I wept like... some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot-- like I was shot with a diamond-- a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, 'My God, the genius of that. The genius.' The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized... they were stronger than me because they could stand it. These were not monsters. These were men-- trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts... who have families, who have children... who are filled with love... that they had the strength-- the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men... then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men... who are moral... and at the same time... who are able to... utilize their... primordial instincts to kill... without feeling, without passion... without judgment-- without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us. I worry that my son... might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard... I would want someone to go to my home... and tell my son everything. Everything I did.

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a strait razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering along the edge of a strait razor... and surviving... But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie, and we have to be mericful for those who lie. Those nabobs. I hate them; I do hate them."

My point isn't we should have an army of Colonel Kurtzes. Simply that Bush should have considered that war is a last resort because it requires men to do things beyond themselves. Things which are last resorts because they are extreme. Again, we all get the "Greatest Generation" speech, but there were eff ups all around, and as above, they didn't play games or gnash teeth.

Understand our military heritage. We were founded by guys who blew English heads off because their breakfast beverage of choice was to them unduly taxed. We had Sherman marching through Georgia with serious bad intent. Read or watch anything about Iwo Jima or the Battle of the Bulge or the Chosin resevoir or Khe San or Tet. Wars are not won by worrying about whtehr your enemy has been offended, but by killing him.

That Bush undertook this with some seriously loopy ideas is what scares me most.We got LBJ II. We have to see that war shouldn't be taken lightly. If we're going in, we're going to hurt a whole bunch of people. And somehwere between Panama and Grenada and Gulf War I, the idea that you could get away with a bloodless war took hold. And that our military should act as combo caterers/social workers/ward healers-missions they have no business doing -also took hold. That all must end once and for all.

Simply as it's being fought-if you could call it "fought", with IEDs killing patrols on undefended roads ,mosques being used with impunity, people calling JAGs before defending themselves-this war is an abomination.