Right Voices

H/T To Bryan for this link:  

Former President Bill Clinton criticized President Bush on Tuesday for commuting the prison sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. and tried to draw a distinction from his own controversial pardons.

In Iowa to promote the presidential candidacy of his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. Clinton was asked by a radio host, David Yepsen, “You had some controversial pardons during your presidency; what’s your reaction to what President Bush did?”

“Yeah, but I think the facts were different,” Mr. Clinton said. “I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted. You’ve got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle.”

“It’s wrong to out that C.I.A. agent and wrong to try to cover it up,” Mr. Clinton added. “And no one was ever fired from the White House for doing it.”

Mr. Clinton pardoned 140 people in the final hours of his presidency, including Marc Rich, the fugitive broker who had been charged with evading tens of millions of dollars in taxes, and who was the former husband of a top donor to Democrats and Mrs. Clinton’s first Senate campaign.

Rather than tread lightly on the Libby commutation, the Clintons have chosen to confront it; Clinton advisers said there was no real alternative, because the news media would bring up the Rich pardon anyway.

Bryan adds:

They’ve chosen to confront it they way they choose to confront everything–by lying, dissembling, and then going on the offensive.

Just let the record show that Mr. Clinton is a perjurer who had his license to practice before the Supreme Court taken away. Let the record show that he sold pardons to his rich friends. Let the record show that he’s still a brazen liar. And let the record show that it was his pal Sandy Berger who stole sensitive documents from the National Archives, hid them under a trailer, then took them home and destroyed them to cover up something that the Clintonistas didn’t want going public, and remember that Berger’s actions made the 9-11 Commission’s work incomplete, and we’ll never know what he covered up. And let the country remember the missing Rose law firm billing records that mysteriously turned up in the Clintons’ White House residence, and all the rest of that sordid mess that the Clintons drag around with them like a trailer park full of skeletons wherever they go.

 White House Reacts to Clintons’ Comments

WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticizing President Bush’s decision to erase the prison sentence of former aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “I don’t know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it,” presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled hearings on Bush’s commutation of Libby’s 2 1/2-year sentence.

“Well, fine, knock himself out,” Snow said of Conyers. “I mean, perfectly happy. And while he’s at it, why doesn’t he look at January 20th, 2001?”

The POTUS did not pardon Libby:

“My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby,” Bush said in a statement. “The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.”

The president’s action means that Libby’s conviction still stands and he is still required to pay the $250,000 fine ordered by a federal judge.

Bush’s full statement. “Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.”

One would think from this and this that he pardoned Marc Rich by the reactions:

Senator Harry Reid, Democratic Majority Leader, called the commutation ‘disgraceful.’

“The President’s decision to commute Mr. Libby’s sentence is disgraceful. Libby’s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone,” Reid said in a statement. “The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice President’s Chief of Staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law.”

Obama: ‘This is exactly the kind of politics we must change’…
Fred Thompson: ‘I am very happy for Scooter Libby’…

FLASHBACK: List of Clinton Pardons…

My Reasons for the Pardons By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

Hillary: ‘In this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice’…

MSM Ignores Higher Placed Clinton Officials’ Conviction to Tout Libby’s:

Henry Cisneros was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, appointed to that position by president Bill Clinton. Cisneros, it should be remembered, was convicted in 1995 on 18 counts of conspiracy, false statements and obstruction of justice. And, I’d dare say that Libby, who only worked in the office of the Vice President, was a minnow in the pond in which Cisneros swam. Cisneros was the Secretary of HUD, after all, a presidential cabinet member!

Naturally, on his way out of the White House in 2001, Clinton pardoned Cisneros.

Bryan has more as does:

• Just in: Bush to Commute Libby’s Sentence « TMQ2
• Ed Driscoll.com
• SCOOTER FREED !! SCOOTER LIBBY COMMUTED!! : 186k Per Second
• Bush Commutes Scooter Libby | Stuck On Stupid
• ProudConservative.com – The Blog Portion
• BREAKING NEWS: Scooter Libby’s Prison Sentence Commuted! « Blogs 4 Brownback
• Bush Commutes Libby’s Prison Sentence » The American Mind
• 

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