Michael Blaine says:

July 13th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

Barry Bonds, “Scooter” Libby and the Integrity of American Justice: Relax, It’s Just a Game

“SAN FRANCISCO — AP, 7/12/07. An attorney [Troy Ellerman] who admitted leaking the confidential grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and other athletes to a reporter was sentenced Thursday to two and a half years in prison, by far the harshest penalty to result from the government’s sprawling probe of steroids in sports.”

If obstruction of justice by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the investigation into the leaking of the name of covert CIA counter-proliferation agent Valerie Plame was deemed not to warrant prison time by President Bush, can there be any doubt that Mr. Ellerman’s sentence will be commuted as well? If the integrity of the nation’s justice system can be eroded when issues of national security are involved, surely it can be obliterated when dealing with something as trivial as a summer game for boys.

Mr. Ellerman should be able to rest easy tonight knowing the president will ensure he never serves a day in the slammer. Clearly, his sentence was “excessive.” After all, thanks to the White House, the nation now understands that honesty in judicial proceedings isn’t really necessary.

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

Cash N. Carey says:

July 13th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

MB- if there is no crime, you don’t have to serve the time. Plame was not covert. If she was, why weren’t charges leveled against anyone for disclosing her identity? Because it was a political witch hunt. If you are so concerned about justice, Ellerman can buy a pardon like many did from Clinton whenever a dem is president again.

Michael Blaine says:

July 14th, 2007 at 12:16 am

CnC:

Interesting: how is my blog — Rudely Stamped — “anti-christian”?

I’ve been trying to defend Christian principles around here by pointing out that support for violently pummeling Iraq and being Christian are incompatible. If you want violence inflicted on Iraqis, then you’ll be condemned by God, according to the Bible.

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

The Grace Kelly says:

July 14th, 2007 at 10:56 am

If you hired a roofing contractor because the roofing contractor did an assessment and told you that roof was majorly rotted and needed to be replaced.

Then it turns our the roof is perfectly fine, so the roofing contractor says look your old roof is going, but we can build you a great wonderful new roof.

Then that went wrong and now the contractor tells unless you pay twice the initial estimate, he can’t put up the roof and your roof will rot.

So at some point, I the houseowner figures out that the best thing that I can do as a houseowner is get this contractor as far away from my house as possible, fire the contractor!

This analogy applies to our national politics.

So just substitute Republican for contractor and on WMD for rotting roof, so you have:

If you supported a Republican administration because the Republican administration did an safety assessment and told you that Iraq had to be invaded because of imminent danger of weapons of mass destruction, that needed to be stopped now.

(Now substitute democracy for new roof.)

Then it turns our there are no were no weapons of mass destruction, so the Republican administration said we can build you a great wonderful new democracy in Iraq.

Then that went wrong and now the Republican administration tells unless you pay twice the initial estimate, they can’t guarantee even stability in the region and your security is eroding.

So just like houseowner learn to fire the roof contractor, so must the voter learn to impeach the Republican administration: Cheney and Bush!