Martin Sheen for president

This would explain why John McCain looks so miserable

Because he's sold his soul to the Bush cabal and feels faintly guilty about it.
Make that stabbing pains of guilt....



Whig of Cannablog:

Dick Cheney resigns, and is pardoned by George Bush.

John McCain is nominated for vice president and if he is confirmed, George Bush then resigns and is pardoned by John McCain. Of course, John McCain would promise not to do that before he is confirmed, but he would break that promise.

Anyone taking bets?

Republicans and pardons

So they can continue business as usual.

Digby of Hullabaloo:

Presidential fingerprints are already on this case, as everybody knows, and which historians will have no problem finding. After all, Libby worked in the white house and was a special counsel to both the president and vice president. I don't think we need to worry about the "case" against the Bush administration's Iraq lies dying with Libby's prison sentence. It's a pretty big case.

The idea that Republicans paid a price for their previous pardons is laughable. In fact, they paid such a huge price that one of the people Bush senior pardoned is working in the white house today! The "political significance" was that it encouraged Republicans to commit crimes while in office knowing that there will be no price to pay. I'm not sure why Democrats should find this a positive, but that's just me.

Ever since Nixon, the Republicans have been getting away with criminal behavior when they are in power. Nixon was allowed to resign and was pre-emptively pardoned. His minions all took their punishment like men, however, and did their time without complaints. But that was the last time. After the multiple crimes committed in Iran-Contra --- big ones, to do with national security and unconstitutional executive power-grabs --- the Republicans decided they had nothing to lose by pardoning their criminal underlings and so they did.

Once Bill "he's not my president" Clinton was elected, the rules changed of course, and they tried to run him out of office with endless partisan witch hunts and impeachment over consensual sexual behavior. For the coup de grace, they had a full-blown hissy fit over his pardon of Marc Rich --- who was represented by Scooter Libby! Now they are clutching their pearls once again about a Republican being the victim of the long arm of the law and the pundits (and now some Democrats) are whining about how he must never see the inside of a jail because he is such a fine fellow and the horrible Republican appointed prosecutor was out to get him.

So excuse me for being skeptical that a pardon will somehow blow back on Bush. Of course it won't. Bush will instead be (temporarily, perhaps) rehabilitated by his party and considered a thoughtful statesmanlike gentleman by the press for having the compassion and decency to spare someone of Scooter's superior humanity from rubbing shoulders with hoi polloi.

Obviously pardons work just for Republicans, not for Democrats. I mean, what is more jail worthy, a blow job or perjury and obstruction of justice? Some of these questions just answer themselves....

If Bush pardons Libby

Bush will be admitting all those things that Libby was found guilty of are true. We know he will pardon Libby. But that will be an admission of guilt. It will make Bush an admitted liar, a sissy, guilt-admitting, cowardly, corruption-loving, responsibility-avoiding, craven liar.

Pardons?

John Aravosis at Americablog notes:

What I want to know is when the media is going to force George Bush to answer the question as to whether he's going to pardon Scooter, Cheney and Rumsfeld, among others, for their various offenses. Certainly, it's fair for the White House to postpone answering that question until Libby is convicted, if at all. But after that point, we need to demand answers, because you know they're all getting pardons.

Whig at Cannablog points out:

On the matter of the presidential pardon being used at any time to halt the investigation of this administration and its co-conspirators, such a pardon does not protect a person from giving future testimony to a grand jury, petit jury or the congress under the penalty of perjury for false statements. Moreover, a pardoned individual cannot raise a legitimate fifth amendment defense against self-incrimination with respect to the pardoned acts, but must testify truthfully to all that is known as one under a grant of prosecutorial immunity.

So either way ... If the courts and the Democrats persevere, we may finally hear the truth.

While honoring Ford

Cheney wistfully mentions pardoning:
""It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe," said Cheney, speaking in the Capitol Rotunda where Ford's body rested in a flag-draped casket. "Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon."

Strangely, he did not mention resigning in disgrace, breaking the law, or impeachment...