The False Dawn of the Commutards
The anti-Bush Left are trying to keep their hysteria in full flower over the already-epochal Libby Commutation —and here’s what Steve Soto’s doing to water it:
Bush’s intent was to obstruct justice by preventing Democrats from getting around a Libby Fifth Amendment dodge and compelling testimony under oath from a defendant whose pardon negated that Fifth Amendment claim.
I don’t understand this. The Fifth Amendment is a hugely important civil liberty —you know, the kind that we’ve been losing with every new martyr sent to the concentration camps all over Amerikkka since Bu$hitler took over— but it’s not so important when a conservative invokes it. Then it’s a dodge.
But, beyond the hypocrisy, one must note the rather glaring error in Soto’s assertion: Libby didn’t get a pardon! The conviction stands. Instead, he had a ridiculously punitive prison sentence lifted. (Goddamned Sandy Bergler repeatedly stole and destroyed eyes only documents from the National Archives and got a $50,000 fine and the back pages. You’re telling me that Libby’s so-called lies, by comparison, merit years in prison? Get serious.)
In any event —convicted, acquitted, pardoned, or imprisoned— how is Libby’s Fifth Amendment right “negated”? It may technically be true that double jeopardy wouldn’t attach where Congress might compel Libby to testify, but that is essentially what one would have in making the Congress into the mere setter of a perjury trap —a notion that strikes me as a partisan insult to the Bill of Rights. Is Libby no longer entitled to his civil liberties because his prison sentence was commuted? Anyhow, Conyers and Schumer are wall-eyed craphounds if they think they’re taking this somewhere.
To the extent that the American People know about this case or could even pick Scooter Libby out of a line-up, it is important to note now that the narrative has already hardened into “Libby was convicted for outing Plame.” It becomes one of those shorthand bumper stickers of a thought that rattle around your average Democrat’s head —like “No War for Oil” and “When Clinton Lied, No One Died.” Never mind that it’s false and that Joe Wilson is a far more plausible violator of the IIPA than Libby ever was. Never mind that this story is only useful as anti-Bush/anti-Cheney propaganda. If it’s something for Keith Olbermann’s audience to mutter and splutter about, then that’s what it will be.
Fuck a litmoid existence. It must be hell.
