"I mean, look. I think, okay? It's the thing I do. It's my job, the thinking. If you walk into the Oval Office on any given day, you'll see me there, thinking. I'm a thinker. The Thinker. I've given it some thought. Not ALL of my thought, mind you, but some. My thought is too precious to give all of it to this matter, much as I love Scooter. Do you love Scooter? No? Well, you're a traitor to this nation and must be destroyed. But we'll get to that. Look. Don't fuck with me, okay? I said Scooter goes free, so Scooter goes free. You fuck with me, you end up in Gitmo without habeas corpus. Got it?"

And then he got Dick to shoot the reporter in the face.

Circle your calendars. It's the day all of you stopped being citizens of the US and instead became the citizens of a third rate cannibal kingdom. We used to make fun of the retarded crack monkey in chief but forgot that the office actually has some breathtaking powers all on its own which are accountable to no one. This is an interesting watershed in that Bush is, for all intents and purposes, essentially ruling by decree now.

I'd have more respect for him if he had said, "Yeah and FUCK ALL OF YOU!"

He/she would have recognized that Bush didn't answer this question at all:

Mr. President, federal sentencing guidelines call for jail time in these kinds of cases of perjury and obstruction of justice. Why do you feel otherwise? And are you worried that this decision sends a signal that you won't go to jail if you lie to the FBI?

Any reporter worth his salt should ask this question repeatedly each time Bush appears, until he provides an answer.

...if the President acknowledges that the verdict was correct, that Scooter perjured himself and obstructed Justice, shouldn't it be of paramount importance to this "law and order" president that the lies told be corrected and the justice obstructed be reached?

Forget the commuting of the sentence, that's actually sub-par for the course.

Let's focus on his acknowledgement that the Vice President's Chief of Staff LIED to Congress and the FBI! He knows it. He acknowledges it. He does not care. This is the most dangerous thing about this entire debacle. Again, he does not care about Congress' oversight duty. He holds utter contempt for the American people and the Democratic process.

If he is not called out on this fact, it will be just another step towards totalitarianism; another precedent for the revoltution to undo when he cancels the elections next year.

For years George Bush has imprisoned people at Guantanamo Bay without any evidence that most of them have done anything wrong. These people have been denied legal representation, denied the to know why they have been imprisoned, denied an appearance before an impartial court.

Scooter was given a trial before a jury of peers. Based on the evidence presented, those peers convicted Scooter of obstructing a federal investigation. George Bush believing Scooter has been through enough turmoil commutes the sentence.

Maybe it is time to take the Constitution of the United States and place it into storage until we find ourselves a representative government that believes the document has a purpose.

Now that the president has expressed his concern over harsh sentences, I'm assuming that we can count on him to revisit the cases of regular people too. He can start with the case of the teenager from Georgia who was sentenced to 10 years for consensual sex. Surely our kind-hearted, compassionate president must think that that sentence is excessive. Oh, wait! nevermind. One set of rules for his cronies, one set for the rest of us.

It begs the question, that for some reason these noodle heads never follow-up with:

"Mr. President: What sentence would you consider to be just for such a felony?"

(Wait four years for the answer)

Followed by:

"Mr. President, given the power you have couldn't you have said that you felt the verdict was correct but the sentence too harsh so I am commuting it to "X" number of months? That way you would be looked at as a reasonable man and not a knucklehead."

Sorry guys. didn't mean to post when I did.

One of the worst things about this whole saga is the fact the Bush promised to *fire* anyone in his administration who was proven to be responsible for leaking the CIA agent's name. Anyone else remember that? Apparently, these guys couldn't care less about the truth.

And - for a president who claims to care so much about law and order, Bush certainly seems to apply the law selectively. He knows that Libby lied to the FBI to cover up a crime, and he does not care. Is he going to tell the rest of the citizens that screwing up an investigation and obstructing justice is really no big deal?? Does Bush think that it's acceptable to lie to the FBI??

Really though, I think that a large part of the reason that Bush is letting Libby off the hook is that he knows Libby just took the fall for Rove and Cheney. Yes, Libby lied to the FBI. Yes, he should be punished for it. However, everyone knows who was really behind the whole thing - if only there were a way to prosecute them.

Furthermore - all the Clinton analogies are red herrings at this point. Clinton should not have lied under oath, but his lie was far less far-reaching and damaging than Libby's. Also - the correctness or incorrectness of Clinton's presidential pardons (or any previous presidential pardons) have *nothing* to do with the situation at hand. (just had to say it).

As to the future, I, you know, rule nothing in and nothing out.

One question and seven sentences later:

I made a judgment, a considered judgment, that I believe is the right decision to make in this case. I stand by it.

Of course, if by "stand by" he means, "rules nothing out," then there's no inconsistency.

I truly think they don't understand their audience actually pays attention. Either that, or their brains are so filled with rationalizations and lies they can no longer manage simple logic.