Circus Time: Desperate Democrats To Have New Boytoy McClellan Testify

Talk about being unable to let go. Despite everyone on the planet knowing it was Richard Armitage who "leaked" the name of non-covert CIA employee Valerie Plame, the idiots in Congress plan to have the hapless Scott McClellan up to Congress to testify next week.

Expect gave-to-gavel coverage of this charade on PMSNBC and CNN.

President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

McClellan will testify publicly and under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20 about the White House's role in the leak and its response, his attorneys, Michael and Jane Tigar, said on Monday.

In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled by others, possibly including Cheney, about the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the leak. McClellan has said publicly that Bush and Cheney "directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby."

The statements prompted House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., to invite McClellan to the hearing "concerning reported attempts to cover up the involvement of White House officials in the leak of" Plame's identity.

Plame's CIA identity was leaked to the news media by several top Bush administration officials in 2003, including Libby and former top White House political adviser Karl Rove. Last July, Bush commuted Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence, sparing him from serving any prison time after being convicted of perjury, obstructing justice and lying to the FBI.

Meanwhile, the certifiably insane Dennis Kucinich is still pushing impeachment. The tin-foil is wrapped a wee bit too tight on his skull.

Good Grief, Woman, Won't You Ever Go Away?

This nauseating media whore is back for more. I guess the book deals, movie deals, magazine spreads and slavish attention from the media just aren't enough.

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is trying to resurrect a lawsuit against those in the Bush administration she says illegally disclosed her identity.

A federal judge dismissed Plame's lawsuit last year, saying there was no basis to bring a case. Plame's lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to send the case back before the judge and force him to consider its merits.

Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sued Vice President Dick Cheney; his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; former White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Plame's CIA position was revealed in a syndicated newspaper column in 2003, during a time when her husband was criticizing the march to war in Iraq. Armitage and Rove were the original sources for that story, which Plame believes was retribution for Wilson's criticism.

The article touched of a lengthy criminal investigation. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald never charged anyone with the leak but convicted Libby of obstruction and lying to investigators.

For someone who allagedly was so guarded about her privacy, it's curious how she now goes out of her way to get attention.

Bush to Consider Libby Pardon

Good for him and I hope he does it. Judging by the incredibly infantile reaction by the bedwetting left, a full pardon may just finish them off.

President Bush yesterday said he will not rule out a pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., while political blowback from the left, critical of his decision to commute Libby's 30-month prison sentence, reached a crescendo.

"As to the future, I rule nothing in or nothing out," Mr. Bush said, after visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he awarded three Purple Hearts.

However, Mr. Bush said that some of the punishments that were given to Libby — such as a $250,000 fine and probation — were "adequate."

"I felt the punishment was severe, so I made a decision that would commute his sentence but leave in place a serious fine and probation," said Mr. Bush, who admitted it had been "a very difficult decision" to make.

The president's decision sparked denunciations by Democratic politicians, outrage and organizing among the liberal grass roots, and praise mixed with calls for a full pardon from conservatives.

Don Surber points out some of the hypocrisy and some silly observations from a little-seen "newsman" who takes himself way too seriously.

Speaking of taking themselves too seriously, the New York Times hyperventilates, though I don't recall such consternation after His Slickness freed FALN terrorists to help The Pantsuit win in New York. Old news, I guess.

In fact, not a single Democrat condemned that pardon. So they all really need to STFU and pipe down now.

More from Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: Bryan at Hot Air notes Bill Clinton has the gall to even open his mouth about any of this.

And Another Thing!

Mark Levin had a word or three during today's show about Dubya's commutation of Scooter Libby's Stalin-esque prison sentence.

It's available in Mark's archives.

Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence

He should have pardoned him outright.

Expect the hyperventilating left to have an absolute meltdown after blathering all day about Libby's appeals being denied.

Bush commutes ex-White House aide's jail term

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Monday commuted a 30-month jail term handed down on former top White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted last month of perjury and obstructing justice.

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive," Bush said in a statement.

"Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

Libby, who was a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, still faces however a 250,000 dollar fine and a two-year probation in the case which threw a glaring spotlight on the US administration's case for waging war on Iraq.

More at NRO.

UPDATE: Hot Air has a roundup of reaction. Sure enough, the hyperbole is flying. And of course, the Kos Kidz are freaking out.

I hope... (13+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
Kestrel, SeanF, ghost2, EasyRider, Miss Blue, bablhous, donailin, david78209, VictorLaszlo, greenearth, Jbeaudill, Randall Sherman, ca democrat

...The next president turns these fuckers over to the World Court. Let The Hague sort them out, lock them up, and throw away the key with applause from the world as it happens

Tom Hagen is not a wartime consigliere

by jpfdeuce on Mon Jul 02, 2007 at 03:19:02 PM PDT

[ Parent ]

Of course, we had to wade into the smoldering cesspool of hatred at the HuffPost, and they do not disappoint.

Conservativeslayer (See profile | I'm a fan of Conservativeslayer)
Hello, Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed by Bush. He's a republican dummy. You repug sheep that see no evil make me sick. They outed a cia agent and you think that's ok because it was Bush that did it. You are the reason America is going down the drain. You and the rest of your authoritian following non-thinking sheep. You let druggie limbaugh and Faux noise tell you how to think. No wonder our country is in such bad shape.
Log in | Parent | posted 6:36 pm on 07/02/2007

More stupidity here.

The Disgrace of Patrick Fitzgerald

Mark Steyn lays waste to Fitzgerald, who has really earned it.

As for Scooter Libby, he faces up to 25 years in jail for the crime of failing to remember when he first heard the name of Valerie Plame -- whether by accident or intent no one can ever say for sure. But we also know that Joe Wilson failed to remember that his original briefing to the CIA after getting back from Niger was significantly different from the way he characterized it in his op-ed in the New York Times. We do know that the contemptible Armitage failed to come forward and clear the air as his colleagues were smeared for months on end. We do know that his boss Colin Powell sat by as the very character of the administration was corroded.

And we know that Patrick Fitzgerald knew all this and more as he frittered away the years, and the ''political blood lust'' (as National Review's Rich Lowry calls it) grew ever more disconnected from humdrum reality. The cloud over the White House is Fitzgerald's, and his closing remarks to the jury were highly revealing. If he dislikes Bush and Cheney and the Iraq war, whoopee: Run against them, or donate to the Democrats, or get a talk-radio show. Instead, he chose in full knowledge of the truth to maintain artificially a three-year cloud over the White House while the anti-Bush left frantically mistook its salivating for the first drops of a downpour. The result is the disgrace of Scooter Libby. Big deal. Patrick Fitzgerald's disgrace is the greater, and a huge victory not for justice or the law but for the criminalization of politics.

Joe Wilson, Lying Gasbag

A special place in hell awaits Joe Wilson. How the man can rest his head on a pillow at night and live with himself escapes me, but I guess when you're a sociopath, living conscience-free is easy to do.

Emmett Tyrrell eviscerates this lowlife today in the Washington Times.

I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's former chief of staff, has been found guilty of lying and faces many years in prison. Joseph C. Wilson IV, his tormentor, has been found guilty of lying, and out in Hollywood they are going to make a movie of his life. He is Hollywood's idea of a hero.

According to a Senate inquiry, this mellifluous gasbag lied about findings regarding the Iraqis' pursuit of uranium in Niger. He lied when he suggested he went on a mission there at the vice president's request. And he lied when he claimed his report on Niger was circulated at the highest levels of government. In all three lies he got caught. Yet, he emerged as a liberal icon. That sounds like a Hollywood movie to me. He also apparently lied when he said his wife was a covert CIA operative. If so, she was the CIA's station chief in Georgetown (As in D.C., not Guyana).

Then there is this lubricous whopper deposited in The Washington Post by the tireless Mr. Wilson: "If you take the time to look at the testimony, it makes very clear the extent to which senior officials within this administration embarked on a disinformation campaign, the justification of which was to cover up the lies they said in the first place." The testimony does nothing of the kind.

Read the rest.

Will Bush Pardon Libby?

John Podhoretz thinks he will. I hope he does. Let the unhinged left caterwaul all they want. We didn't hear squat from them when Bill Clinton pardoned drug dealers, terrorists and fugitives.

In his last days as president, George W. Bush will pardon Scooter Libby - that is, if the convictions secured yesterday don't get overturned on appeal.

For political reasons, Bush can't pardon Libby earlier than that. His responsibilities as head of the Republican Party, heading into an election year, would preclude such action.

But Bush won't leave office without issuing that pardon.

Why? Because if Bush fails to pardon Libby, he will implicitly be accepting the contention that Scooter Libby was part of a White House conspiracy at the highest levels to destroy the career of a CIA agent whose husband had proved Bush & Co. had lied us into the Iraq War.

DC Jury Convicts Ham Sandwich

Richard Armitage was unavailable for comment. Well, at least this may knock Ann Coulter off the media radar for, oh, maybe 10 minutes.

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial (Hat tip: Salivating orgasmic drive-by media).

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room.

The verdict was read on the 10th day of deliberations. Libby faces up to 30 years in prison, though under federal sentencing guidelines likely will receive far less.

What he should receive is time served, as in nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada.

The Clintons pardoned terrorists, drug dealers and fugitives. I think a guy who didn't do anything certainly deserves a pardon.

Immediately.

UPDATE: More from Michelle Malkin and A Blog For All. NRO has ample coverage here, here, here, here, and here.

Libby and the Leak

Byron York wonders where this mess of a trial is headed, while the New York Post editorial rightly labels the prosecution of Scooter Libby curious.

So, just what is this trial all about, anyway?

More important: Why is Patrick Fitzgerald still investigating this case - after already wasting millions of taxpayer dollars looking into a "crime" that never happened?

It's a mystery.

Observers of the trial disagree as to who's scoring the most points. But this much is certain: Even if Libby is convicted, it won't have added one bit to the nation's knowledge of what happened in this case.

Fitzgerald, no doubt, is pushing forward in order to claim at least one scalp so that he can justify his out-of-control investigation.

But if any case should finally put to death the notion that there's a need for special prosecutors, this is it.

I'm all for that.