I'm guessing Jefferson foresaw Reagan needing to pardon most of his staff...

Rich has not been allowed back in the US because the President can only pardon for federal crimes. Rich was subject to state indictments.--breadbaker

Here's the list of actual charges against Marc Rich, every one of which is a federal charge:

Wire fraud, mail fraud, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, criminal forfeiture, income tax evasion, and trading with Iran in violation of trade embargo, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1341, 1962(c), 1962(d), 1963, and 2; 26 U.S.C. § 7201, 50 U.S.C. § 1705, and 31 C.F.R. §§ 535.206(a)(4), 535.208 and 535.701

Maybe you can bullshit you simple-minded liberal compadres, breadbaker, but there are some people out here who recognize barnyard byproducts when we smell them.

This disgraceful administration relies on muddying the water to mask their corrupt manipulation of nearly everthing. They are so clever and shrewd and cynical it's almost impressive.

The only sunlight that can possibly defeat these vampires who feast on obfusication is the kind of elegant exposure Mr. Blumenthal has created here. It's rather simple -- a naked and criminal political retribution on the President's behalf is exposed and punished under the law. The law is then cast aside by the President precisely because it protects/suits him and his henchmen.

Thank you for at least allowing us all to understand and soberly witness the deeply corrupt work of the White House.

There is a lot of pablem from the administration and their apologists about history being the final arbiter of President Bush, not the opinion of the day. Fair enough. This era will eventually go down as being so much more massively stained than the Nixon era without the compensation of Nixon's talents.

Impeach. Impeach. Impeach. This is where we start repairing the damage and beginning to build a vision worthy of our great country that the guys in Philadelphia were dreaming about in 1776.

Why does the Constitution let the President pardon criminals? Doesn't seem right whether you are Bill Clinton or George Bush.

Seems rather against the principles in the rest of the Constitution.

I thought he was against public displays of shamelessness.

Things are getting so bad, I wonder just where they'll end up.

The Marc Rich "pardon" didn't work, don't you all remember? Rich has not been allowed back in the US because the President can only pardon for federal crimes. Rich was subject to state indictments. The whole thing is a nonsequitur masked as an argument by the same propaganda machine that conflates Clinton's lies with Libby's lies.

The ultimate question is whether you care to live in a country where lying to federal investigators of a leak of a CIA agent's identity is unpunished, or in a country where lying in a deposition in a civil case about your own personal infidelity is the one that is more punished. Clinton's lies were the same lies that are made in divorce cases all around the country all the time and no one gets a perjury charge for them. Libby's lies could potentially put real people in danger. This administration gets by with the calumny that questioning its policy puts troops in danger, but has no problem sending the message to every CIA agent that their lives will be endangered if Dick Cheney thinks it might help the air conditioning work better in his office for an hour next Thursday.

"One of us..."

I think this vindicates all those who did not vote in 2000. After all, everyone knew that Bush and Gore were absolutely alike and so similar that it was not only pointless to vote, nay, it would actually be counterproductive in that it would Just Encourage Them.

Of course, now we can look around and see how everything is Exactly Exactly The Same as it would have been if Al Gore had been elected. Exactly! Y'know, sometimes I have trouble remembering who's actually the President, it was so close and inconsequential.

It just goes to show that all those "apathetic" "uninformed" people who Stuck It To The Man by staying home on Election Day were absolutely right. Fight the power! Yeah! Take that!

We who are not Americans and who therefore are free of the onerous and pointless obligation of voting in U.S. elections, yet enjoy the privilege of living in the same ecosystem as President Bush (or is it Gore? Ha ha, whatever!) salute you, the American Vote Resistor, and in particular do not seethe with venom and contempt for your alleged stupidity.

The only thing Libby was convicted of was having a different memory of his phone conversation with Tim Russert than Russert had. That call came after the Novak story. No attempt to tie Libby to Novak, Judith Miller, or Matthew Cooper ever proved successful. That he leaked any information was never proved, and he was never found guilty of this act. Only his statement under oath about the Russert coversation, when Russert was brought into the trial and gave a different account of the call, lead to a charge of obstruction of justice. It's an incredibly minor point, and the sentence really was ludicrously severe under the circumstances.

In case you care, Richard Armitage is the one who leaked Plame's name. But even then you'd have trouble insisted he get a lengthy conviction because the prosecutor determined that no one had actually committed the crime of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

These are the facts. Wish you'd demonstrate facts that prove your theory, or that Bush "confesses Scooter Libby engaged in a cover-up." Like, a quote might be nice.

Please try to keep these things in mind when writing future articles.

I'm afraid the Marc Rich pardon and other cheesy behavior on the part of our buddy Bill are relevant and do affect the ethical issue. Don't let this be another us vs. them debate; that gets us nowhere. Every time a president fails to uphold the highest standards, he lets the next guy get away with even worse conduct.

One man has a trial, gets great due process, has a million dollar defense team, has rights to appeal, and is found guilty. He is sentenced to jail and gets about the same sentence as other people found guilty of the same crime but he does no jail time. He knows Dick Cheney and George Bush.

Hundreds of other men are handed over to the US military for cash bonuses, held for years and years without legal counsel, never get a trial (let alone a jury trial), are permitted no visitors, and are never permitted to see the evidence that holds them in prison, (several die while in custody).

This is George Bush's America; Goerge Bush has done more to destroy the ideals of America than any of the terrorists. If you were a brother, father, sister, child of one of these men held for years without any due process you might want to blow something up to.