Do you agree with Bush's decision on Scooter? (house of representatives, Congressmen, legal)

[brattpowered]

What do you think?

[Toninole]

I don't agree with it, but it is within his power to do it so I can't really argue about it.

I am interested to see what Congress will do at this point and if Patrick Fitzgerald has anything more up his sleeve...

The saddest part of this entire case is the damage that was done to our national security by basically robbing us of a very valuable intelligence asset who had served us for many years.

[JustPassinThru]

History has been kinder to President Ford than most Americans were at the time of his pardoning of President Nixon for all crimes.

Perhaps President Busch is willing to take the heat now, in the belief that he will be viewed as a benevolent Head of State in the future when we look back upon these events.

Not. A deal is a deal and he kept his part of the bargain.

Not only does it smell, but I wouldn't be surprised if this commutation is a major factor in denying GB the legacy he craves.

[Toninole]

I think history has been kind to Ford because people can't remember anything else he did.

I think you got it in a nutshell "a deal is a deal"

[Toninole]

You know who I feel sorry for? Conservatives. Seriously.

There are still so many on this forum that spend their time defending this man when most of the world wrote him off years ago. I honestly feel sorry for them in that they will spend the next few decades hearing what a horror he caused on so many levels and I just wonder how long they'll be able to pull out "but Sandy Berger" or "but Bill Clinton" or "Kerry had a long face" or "Gore is too smart" or "Hillary has a screechy voice" or ...

I know there were a lot of liberals who felt Bill Clinton was railroaded during a civil suit where he lied under oath. He lied. He was tried by the house and they impeached him. He was tried by the senate and they didn't.

I could defend his right to sleep with whomever he chose above the age of consent and I really didn't care if he banged her in the rose garden. It isn't my marriage. However, I didn't like the lie and I really hated the softball it gave to conservatives.

What I find amusing, though, are the conservatives who still aren't aware that their beloved congressmen were doing the very same thing (and worse) at the time...

[mrrumples]

Impeach him: Quoting James Madison {author of the US Constitution, President of the United States} from the minutes of the Constitutional Convention "...if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty." Public officals must be held to a higher standard since they are there to protect the Republic.

[Lisa_from_Debary]

Well first off, Nixon stepped down before there were any charges brought against him...Ford pardoned him when there was NOTHING to pardon him for...

I think Bush did what he wanted to do rather then what was right and this is just another example of how out of touch with the real world and a sense of right and wrong the man is.

This action is him thumbing his nose at the legal system. AND I would say the same thing if it was a Democrat who did it.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Lisa_from_Debary

Well first off, Nixon stepped down before there were any charges brought against him...Ford pardoned him when there was NOTHING to pardon him for...

No, there were three articles of impeachment brought against Nixon, for obstruction of justice, abuse of powers, and contempt of Congress. These were the formal charges that Nixon resigned to avoid trial of, knowing that he would be convicted and removed from office over them. Further, the grand jury investigating the Watergate conspiracy had named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator, this because a sitting President may not be named as a criminal defendant, only as a civil defendant (though the permissability of even that had not been established yet). Once he left office, Nixon himself became formally liable to the same criminal charges that ultimately sent nearly all of his top staff to prison. But what really irked people about the Ford pardon, granted barely a month after Ford took office, was that it absolved Nixon of any crime at all that he might have committed between January 1969 and August 1974. Not just the crimes specific to Watergate, but any crime at any time of any nature.

[Rhett_Butler]

Originally Posted by Toninole

I don't agree with it, but it is within his power to do it so I can't really argue about it.

I am interested to see what Congress will do at this point and if Patrick Fitzgerald has anything more up his sleeve...

The saddest part of this entire case is the damage that was done to our national security by basically robbing us of a very valuable intelligence asset who had served us for many years.

Gawd could you be any more melodramatic??? Let's canonize Ms. "Plame" already, right???

That said I'm not voting in the poll because I don't like the way either is phrased, but I think what Bush did is a travesty to the legal system. I realize the President has the power to do such things, but I really am beginning to think we have to re-address this specific power because it's been abused far too often. While Libby was MOST certainly a scapegoat, he DID committ perjury and deserves the punishment assigned to him.

Perhaps without the <wink wink> deals of a virtual pardon thrown out there we could more quickly get to the bottom of executive misconduct. Without a Scooter Libby willing to take the fall (and most likely a nice payout) with the deal that he will serve no time and be a free man, who's going to take one for a corrupt executive???

[burdell]

I think it's just one more example of the belief that BushWorld is outside US jurisdiction.

This appears to be a very confused administration, first Cheney believes the Vice President is not a part of the Executive Branch and now Bush thinks the Judicial just can't get along without his personal touch. I suppose any day now we can expect Karl Rove to be taking an absent Senator's seat and attempting to cast a vote.