Who needs an article when the headline says it all?? The Investors Business Daily editorial today covers a lot of territory, chastising the latest "transparent" Congress. But in fact, the beefs don't even scratch the surface.
Border security (not amnesty first... shut the door THEN address who's here, you bozos...), the still boring non-story of fired US attorneys, and down to the unmentioned, but still on my mind, funding of the troops.... Congress deftly avoids the real work and issues, opting instead to work the press machine and speaketh on whatever the anti-Bush fare issue of the day.
The goal? Lots of face time on the round of daily talking head spots. Evidently all eyes are still fixed on the last prize... the WH in 2008. And real work be damned.
Today they got a real bone tossed their way - the Scooter Libby commuted sentence ... probably good for another couple of 24/7 weeks of media and pol headshaking and tongue clucking on the talk shows. It will also get the Wilson's back out of mothballs for another 15 minutes of fame. Most of us haven't even missed the not-so-dynamic couple.
Indicative of coverage to come started with a WH press conference with Tony Snow, fueled by an indignant collection of correspondents starving for another scandal. Far from their minds was facts and history... that the President did not pardon Libby, but merely commuted his sentence, leaving the financial penalties and loss of attorney income in place. And, of course, the fact that this is all within legal means and a power exercised by WH admins in the recent past for crimes far more serious than the high crime of impeding an investigation about a "maybe" leak that the accused did not do, and no ensuing charges for crimes were found. Huh?
Lord knows, if a terrorist attack (God forbid) happens anywhere in the world and usurps the latest self righteous indignation in the press machine, they'll probably think it was staged by Bush to bump the Scooter story. Unbelievable is the mentality and thought processes with so many today.
It will be amusing to see how far the pols and media will go in pushing our short term memories of history - treading dangerously in waters muddied by (just to mention a few...) Clinton-Rich and other last twilight pardons, Sandy Berger's "pick up the trash" penalty for stealing classified docs, and Clinton-the-husband's own conviction of perjury and obstruction of justice while being investigated for sexual harassment in the Paula Jones case.
In fact, the DOJ has the extraordinarily long list of Clinton's pardons available for view to anyone. Compare this to other previous admins easily. The current admins stats are only available per press release documentation, but appears to be hovering around 47 after 6 years in office. Link here to those press releases. It's hardly a power tool Dubya's wielded as extensively as prior Presidents.
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UPDATE: Hillary sez Bill's pardons/commutes and grants were "simply routine". uh huh... She accuses Bush of doing this to protect his administration. Interesting concept since the leaker was Armitage... an official who was not so all fired thrilled about the Iraq liberation to begin with. So why would he attempt to discredit the Plames/Wilsons when he agrees with them? DOH!
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While the press and DC beltway are self-absorbed in the Plame Blame Game latest fallout, the masses never cared much one way or another. After all, Bush-Cheney-Rove was not the source of the so-called "leak" but anti-Iraq war dude, Dick Armitage. And it's not like Valerie Plame was out there doing serious undercover work in the terrorism field. She'd been outed years before.
And oh, side note... hard to get all huffy when the investigation led to no where but a Dem smile and big but brief "gotcha" for the media. Except for Kelly O'donnell, of course. She still sits in the WH Press Corp to this day, demanding over and over for someone in the WH to "apologize"... Good lord. This and a dime gets you what?
Ho hum to it all, I say... we have bigger fish to fry, folks.
As for Congress, who will be all over this like flies on a turd, is this what we pay them to do? What about the troops? What about our border security? I thought they were all afire about our ports not being secure? When it comes to important issues, Congress is actively filling up the back burner.
One can only make note of the historic low approval rating of Congress to know most of us aren't going to be fooled by the Congressional self posturing on all the BS flying around. We want results on issues... period.
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