Should President Bush Pardon...

[john9001]

email the president and your congressman and tell them to pardon the agents.

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Brenjen
Oh this is the guy that "leaked" the name of the CIA employee. My mistake, there is so much corruption & wrongdoing in Washington D.C. it's hard to keep track of who did what.

 I suppose in this instance I would have to say it hinges on the question; Was Valerie Plame an "operative" as in undercover, or was she just a CIA employee. Those are two different things. I heard she was not in a covert role.
 
 Bush shouldn't pardon him either way. We have courts for a reason.

You need to be better informed--Richard Armitage 'leaked' Plame first---and he was a Bush enemy

[Shuckins]

Kieran,  President Clinton committed perjury...and he did no time.  Apparently, some believe that there are varying degrees of guilt.

[Kieran]

I know, Shuckins, but that ship has sailed. All we can do is deal with the now. If convicted, a person should serve time, just like you or I would in a similar situation. Libby is guilty. Why he chose to fall on the grenade is moot; he did. And I sure as heck don't want to see him pull an Oliver North and wrap himself in the flag and try to convince me he did it for America.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by bj229r
You need to be better informed--Richard Armitage 'leaked' Plame first---and he was a Bush enemy

Dear lord, Armitage is a card carrying member of PNAC along with Jeb Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfwitz etc.  He wasn't any kind of outsider.

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Dear lord, Armitage is a card carrying member of PNAC along with Jeb Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfwitz etc.  He wasn't any kind of outsider.

The State dept under Powell was and still IS against Bush, particularly the Iraq war--Armitage was a vocal critic of it, and could have ended the investigation before it started by speaking up, but he was granted immunity, so he didn't have to. Not everything is as it seems, or how you wish it to be

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/

Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA. (The memo made no reference to her undercover status.) Armitage had met with Novak in his State Department office on July 8, 2003—just days before Novak published his first piece identifying Plame. Powell, Armitage and Taft, the only three officials at the State Department who knew the story, never breathed a word of it publicly and Armitage's role remained secret.

Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity. "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing," he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had "slipped up" and told Novak more than he should have. "He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f---ed up..

As it turned out, Novak wasn't the only person Armitage talked to about Plame. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has also said he was told of Plame's identity in June 2003. Woodward did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but, as late as last week, he referred reporters to his comments in November 2005 that he learned of her identity in a "casual and offhand" conversation with an administration official he declined to identify. According to three government officials, a lawyer familiar with the case and an Armitage confidant, all of whom would not be named discussing these details, Armitage told Woodward about Plame three weeks before talking to Novak.

The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

Indeed, Armitage was a member of the administration's small moderate wing. Along with his boss and good friend, Powell, he had deep misgivings about President George W. Bush's march to war. A barrel-chested Vietnam vet who had volunteered for combat, Armitage at times expressed disdain for Dick Cheney and other administration war hawks who had never served in the military. Armitage routinely returned from White House meetings shaking his head at the armchair warriors. "One day," says Powell's former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson, "we were walking into his office and Rich turned to me and said, 'Larry, these guys never heard a bullet go by their ears in anger ... None of them ever served. They're a bunch of jerks'."

[LEADPIG]

I think George Bush ough to pardon HIMSELF and is excellent example for the reason to have an I.Q. test administered before becoming president. I find it interesting that the Dixie Chicks knew the Iraq war was a bad idea before him and nearly his whole cabinet did.  As i said before you don't need to posses a college education and what the world would consider proof of intelligent to be wise.

[Thrawn]

Twaddle, Armitage wasn't some State Department lifer bureaucrat.  He was a colleague of all the other PNAC members in the Bush administration, and was a freaking Bush political appointee.  Hell, he served as a a foreign policy adviser to Bush during his initial Presidential campaign.

Now you trying to make him out to be representative of the State Department instead of Bush, who gave him his freaking job?  I don't think so.  There's a common thread in this story and it isn't the State Department, it's the neo-cons following their stated policies using their typical methods to effect those policies.

[Shamus]

Originally posted by bj229r
The State dept under Powell was and still IS against Bush, particularly the Iraq war--Armitage was a vocal critic of it, and could have ended the investigation before it started by speaking up, but he was granted immunity, so he didn't have to. Not everything is as it seems, or how you wish it to be

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/

What does any of this have to do with what Libby was convicted of?

shamus

[LEADPIG]

Don't worry Shamus, discussions are like rivers, they flow where they will, but always lead to the ocean of higher knowledge.

[Hap]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Dear lord, Armitage is a card carrying member of PNAC along with Jeb Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfwitz etc.

It doesn't Shamus.  What's the old saying?  When the facts are against you, argue the law.  When the law is against you, argue the facts.  When and facts and the law are against you, argue like heck.


And Thrawn, those guys, PNAC are a spooky bunch indeed.  They've been in the same room agreeing with each other for way too long.  I know delusional is not a stretch though megalomaniacal maybe but not by far.

All the Best,

hap

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Shamus
What does any of this have to do with what Libby was convicted of?

shamus

It has only to do with the oft-stated allegation that Bush's people 'leaked' Plame's name---Armitage, etal, is NOT one of Bush's people. Libby wasn't the one who 'leaked' her name. He is guilty of lying during the investigation--no more, no less.

(If he DID lie intentionally, what would have been his motive...AND WHO is stupid enough to think they can lie to a grand jury and get away with it?)

[Speed55]

http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clintonpardon_grants.htm

If Bush does pardon him, Take a look at who Clinton Pardoned, just for a comparison.

[Denholm]

WOW!:O

[Torque]

pops gave orlando bosch a pardon, scooter the goat, that's a given..