I don't have a problem with the commutation, or any pardon that may eventually come down the road. It's the prerogative of the President, one he got when he was sworn in to office and one every president before has had as well. I'm not happy about this instance of it, but I'm sure most presidents have used some of their powers in ways I don't like. However, I personally think the reason given publicly is awful. It just goes to show that President Bush doesn't mean what he says.

As far as I'm concerned, the reason Libby's sentence was commuted was "Because Bush can." I hope that those few that are still supportive of Bush will take a second look, but I'm not holding my breath.

"Well, other than 8 years as governor of Texas, he had no background in public service.

I love the stupidity on parade around here."

More depth from the courageous anonymous, and we are blessed by his sagacity.

I don't care if GB was president of the universe for 100 years, the statement about his having no experience to "equip him" is right on.

There is no experience an idiot can have that will turn him into someone equipped to deal with anything other than bull-headed adherence to someone else's doctrine.

Are you the same anonymous with a serious irony problem? I'll bet you are...so subtlety is also a challenge for you aye?

You know GB ran an oil company too...into the ground.

Oh, and before you start slinging "facts", go check the lists from GB1 and Reagan for pardons.

Then have a nice day being anonymous...blip.

Spare me and everybody else your whining excuse of "He/She did it so it's okay if I do it too!"

The issue, I believe, is all the moaning and gnashing of teeth by Democrats over what is really a minor case when they were either (a) silent or (b) supportive of Clinton's pardoning a criminal who fled with his millions to live overseas but basically bought his pardon with those ill-gotten gains. It was also their support of Clinton for pardoning terrorists and murderers.

As someone else said, it's the hypocrisy.

Mark Rich left the country in 1983 after being convicted of engaging in illegal oil transactions with Iran and owing taxes of $48 million. Mark Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, divorced from him for 19 years, was a prominent socialite who had given $450,000 to the Clinton Library Fund. She and her lawyer, Scooter Libby, lobbied Clinton for a pardon. Clinton claimed he received advice from the justice department that criminal charges relating to the oil transactions may not have been applicable, and commuted the criminal charges.

If Rich tries to enter the US (he hasn't) he can be prosecuted for owing back taxes. As with their other scandals, after an investigation by US attorneys Mary Jo White and James Comey the case was dropped when no evidence of a quid pro quo could be established. At the same time they also claimed, without any proof, that Clinton's people trashed the White House on the way out so that their selected president could slink into office and the outgoing president would be leaving under a cloud of "scandals".

By contrast, George Bush has kept Libby out of jail for covering up his and Cheney's involvement in a smear campaign. Bush and Cheney used lies to commit our nation to war and when they were exposed by Joe Wilson, they engaged in a morally reprehensible criminal conspiracy involving the outing of an undercover CIA agent. Bringing up Marc Rich is a "red herring". History will compare Bush's action to Nixon's "Saturday night massacre"; a case of obstruction of justice and we know what that led to.

In my zeal for a chuckle, I overlooked the obvious.

In the ZEAL of the neo-cons to rule the world, they overlooked something quite obvious, too.

There were three OTHER attempts to establish the Reich, all of which failed -- and for the same basic reasons.

So why attempt a Fourth Reich? Well, because the chimpanzees have access to better banana peelers this time, of course!

Bust out your slide rules, der Brownshirters! It's time to calculate your stupidity to ten decimal places so that you can explain to the whole world, once again, that you KNOW you were being stupid, but NOW you understand why!

Go compete for evolution among your own kind...I think there's some sponge mold growing in your refrigerators by now -- shoo!

Which leaves one question: why are the people who support the traitors always happy to admit that the Cheney/Rove administration is, in their opinion, in every way just like Clinton's? Aren't they supposed to hate Clinton? Just how stupid do you have to be to think that argument makes sense?

Never mind -- that last question was rhetorical.

In order for President Clinton to match what Bush has done, he would have had to commute Susan McDougall's sentence. Can you imagine the howls heard 'round the world if he had done that?

Bush and Cheney used lies to commit our nation to war and when they were exposed by Joe Wilson

Not really. Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the British Butler Report showed that in fact Bush's statement in the State of the Union address was correct and that Wilson was wrong.

Wilson was also exposed as a liar by the Senate report, which is why the Kerry campaign dropped him like a hot potato.

Please let's not make a political hack and opportunist like Joe Wilson into something he's not.

apparently working in the area of controlling WMD (the irony that Wilson's trip weakened the case for Saddam's WMD arsenal, the raison d'etre of our invasion must not ve lost) -- aside from that being AGAINST THE LAW ...

the Executive Branch trashed what I would guess was millions of dollars of anti-WMD intelligence apparatus and connections.

I would guess that Plame's european counterparts, for instance, take lightly the prospect of having their own existence, much less covert status, so breeched as part of petty POLITICAL payback .....

Wilson's article, as I recall it, was not POLITICAL ... Team Cheney were furious because they had been caught out in a LIE -- a non-political lie (What can you say about someone who keeps insisting the Prague-Mohammed Atta "meet" took place years YEARS after it was debunked ????)

Anyhow, I want restitution made for my tax dollars squandered by the Executive Branch in outing Plame, in breaking the law, in warranting Fitzgerald's investigation ... and that's just for starters ...

then we can talk about the missing BILLIONS IN TAX DOLLAR lost in Iraq which their mismanagement cannot account for.