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Crawford

My parents chose to spend their retirement near Granbury, Texas. When I drive up to see them, State Highway 317 takes me through the center of Crawford, the location of George W. Bush's rent-a-ranch. As someone who drove through town back when life was good and foreign and domestic enemies seemed to be banished from the field, I can attest to the hard times that have befallen it.

How often do residents of a small rural town get the chance to have a neighbor who's America's number one ‘guy you'd like to have a beer with' (in a respectful, Baptist sort of way, y'know)? I admit I was puzzled by the fact that the citizens of Crawford, true Texans, were really buying the whole drugstore cowboy bit. My only conclusion has been they were blinded by a double whammy. The footlights of the Beltway and the flattery of having your own prejudices and hatreds reflected by such a powerful man must have been an intoxicating combination.

Driving home, I noticed that the trend of the disappearing Support the Troops magnet was continuing. Long since installed in the political chicanery Hall of Fame, these thinly veiled Bush-Cheney 04 ads have long since been removed by people still capable of vomiting. Crawford, being the last outpost in George Bush's Eastern Front of history's onrushing judgment, still had a few dead-enders as recently as my last drive through town. This time, the closest thing I could find was a yellow Pray for Our Troops magnet. The irony and painful truth of seeing that slogan in Crawford was profound.

I'm sure the residents of Crawford feel the same way. Over the six plus years of the Bush regime, civic pride seems to have become exhausted testiness. Being a big proponent of the First Amendment right to free speech, I'm in the habit of saluting the First Couple with a specific finger as I pass each way on my journeys. I'll admit this is neither the most mature nor the most respectful action I can take, but I enjoy it immensely. Apparently that feeling is not shared by the Police Chief of Crawford. I know that he's the police chief because he told me he was after he pulled me over just outside of town last week.

This gentleman was media savvy. His vehicle screamed up behind me with enough sirens and lights to stop any freedom hater dead in his or her tracks. Then, with an extraordinarily white and friendly smile, he noted that I seemed to be going just a little too fast down main street (which is what they call Highway 317 within the city limits). Not so. With most of my family residing in small towns in southeast Texas and central Mississippi, I know better than to disrespect the law in rural jurisdictions. He had lots of friendly questions. I wondered how his therapeutic healing from the Cindy Sheehan trauma was coming along. He noted that I was from Austin while perusing my driver's license. Rural Texans often have certain notions about Austinites. Very rarely is this a good thing. After a second jovial reminder that he was giving me a warning and not a ticket, he let me go on my Godless, Communist way.

The citizens of Crawford like the Stalinists in Albania and the Fascists in Spain have a way of clinging on to the essence of bad men long after their powers have begun to fade.

I'm not saying that folks from Crawford are Stalinists or fascists. And I'm not saying Bush 43 is as bad as Stalin and Franco. This is merely an analogy pointing out that in "strong man" governments, absolute loyalty is required to maintain effective control. To obey offers up the opportunity to be greatly compensated. To resist is to invite severe punishment. But hey, if you choose to be offended by this illustration then, in the words of James Carville, "You stand offended."

The Crime

Last week President Bush commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30 month prison term.

Mr. Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted of lying to F.B.I. agents and a grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert C.I.A. operative in 2003. Ms. Plame is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who had accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify war with Iraq. Her ability to aid U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts was immediately compromised and her career was effectively ended. This action was widely regarded as payback against Wilson.

Libby was also a principle actor in the Bush administration's manufactured rationale for going to war in Iraq. He skillfully manipulated the New York Times' Judith Miller. Mr. Libby played on her desire for a contact high of power by associating with the subjects she was supposed to be objectively reporting on. He spoon-fed her bogus information about Saddam Hussein's WMD capacity. This was dutifully transcribed onto front page articles in the Times. In a move that may well have been the high water mark of Karl Rove's career, these articles were subsequently cited by the Bush administration as a reason to invade Iraq.

It can't be overemphasized that all decisions in the Bush White House are made with political considerations superseding all others. Joe Wilson threatened the carefully orchestrated message discipline of one aspect of the bogus rationalization for going to war. The traditional Bush family response to perceived threats is massive retaliation. Libby then assisted in covering up who was actually responsible for that crime. In the end, he fell on his sword in order to save others (Karl Rove in particular) the risk of having to lie to Congress.

Shortly after his conviction, a lot of noise started coming from the conservative right wing calling for a pardon for Libby. There was a concern that someone responsible for deceiving the American people into war and then putting our national security at risk by outing a covert C.I.A. operative was actually going to be punished! The implications of having to take responsibility for their actions must have sent a chill down the spines of the neo-cons.

Fouad Ajami, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, summed up the delusional perspective of the neo-cons, "Scooter Libby was a soldier in your-our-war in Iraq." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman responded, "Ah, yes. Shuffling papers in an air-conditioned Washington office is exactly like putting your life on the line in Anbar or Baghdad. Spending 30 months in a minimum-security prison, with a comfortable think-tank job waiting at the other end, is exactly like having half your face or both your legs blown off by an I.E.D."

By the way, Valerie Plame's area of specialty was tracking down the loose nukes that groups like al-Qaeda are very interested in acquiring. The petty vindictiveness of Cheney and the White House cost the U.S. a veteran expert in the field as well as her contacts. Chalk up another victory in President Bush's War on Terror.

The Game You Love

Convicted of lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice, Libby's sentence was commuted by President Bush shortly after he was ordered by the trial judge to report to prison to begin serving his time. His fine of $250,000 was left in effect.

In a statement, the elected leader of the world's oldest democracy stated he had nullified the court's prison sentence because he thought it was "excessive." That's funny. I think that the deaths of 3, 500 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis in a war whose fabricated origins were created and then protected by Mr. Libby crimes are excessive.

The White House and Libby's conservative backers maintained that even with his prison sentence commuted, Libby would still suffer. At the White House press briefing the following day, press secretary Tony Snow noted that Libby's reputation and earning potential were ruined as a result of his being no longer able to practice law due to his conviction. Please. You can't throw a brick down K Street without hitting a lawyer who doesn't practice law.

And as far as that $250,000 fine goes, Libby's pals came up with the cash in three days. Arianna Huffington led off her blog posting with, "Well, that was easy... Maybe he was able to get a quick Pay Day Loan."

Watergate Calling

Far more than the war in Iraq mirrors Vietnam, the similarities between the Watergate scandal and what has been called Plamegate are remarkable. The differences in their outcomes couldn't be starker.

To put this in perspective, during the Watergate scandal Attorney General John Mitchell, as well as presidential aides John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman went to prison for similar crimes.

In 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Sentenced to two and a half to eight years for his role in the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up, he was paroled after 19 months for medical reasons.

H.R. Haldeman was the person in the Watergate scandal whose role most resembled Libby's. Where Haldeman served as President Nixon's chief of staff, Libby did the same job for Vice President Cheney. He was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Assistant to the President John Erlichman specialized in dealing with the political opposition. His methods can best be described as search and destroy. He created the Plumbers, a domestic covert-ops unit that would be caught burglarizing Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, starting the scandal that would eventually bring down Nixon. He was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. He served a total of 18 months.

In the Watergate scandal, no one died and there was no damage done to our national security interests as a result of the cover-up.

Now Mr. Libby won't have to spend a night in jail. He won't have to get a second job to pay that fine, either.

Stepping on the Scales of Justice

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway's fabled response to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich are very different from you and I. They have more justice.

Our founders were determined that there would be no king ruling this nation. One of the pillars upon which this vision rested was equal justice under law. There would not be one set of laws for the aristocracy and another for the common man. Thus, the concept that we are a nation of laws, not men. Not a phrase used in the White House press room or heard about in the echoing media these days.

In recent times, judges have the Sentencing Guidelines to help maintain fairness in our courts. The Guidelines give a limited range of sentences for specific crimes. The presiding judge has discretion to ignore them, but only under very unusual circumstances. The judge in Libby's trial simply followed the rules. Once again, when George Bush finds some aspect of the American system of government inconvenient, he simply ignores it. Scoot on home, Mr. Libby. Shannon Hall is an attorney and ad litemlawyer for children in the abuse and neglect system in the District of Columbia. She writes:

Does a child raised by an abusive, drug-addicted prostitute, who grew up actually sharing the working bed of his mother, deserve the same sentence as the middle-class coddled priest? If the offense is the same, under our Sentencing Guidelines, the defendants get the same sentence. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines were enacted partly to reduce sentencing disparities favoring the wealthy. Hate them or love them, the guidelines have been successful in that effort... One reason that the sentencing guidelines have been successful is because of their relentless focus on the crime involved, not the defendant. To this end, the Sentencing Guidelines prohibit consideration of a defendant's background and good deeds. In fact, a litany of legalese bars judges from considering a good deal of background: "lack of guidance as a youth and similar circumstances indicating a disadvantaged upbringing are not relevant," "mental and emotional conditions are not ordinarily relevant," "family ties and responsibilities are not ordinarily relevant," and, of course, "age (including youth) is not ordinarily relevant."

But now, suddenly, President Bush has decided that a defendant's background matters. I like this because of my clients, my incipient criminals - oh if I could just tell you about their backgrounds. Give me the chance. How they pull their own hair out in the throes of a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder nightmare, how they acquired the scars on their bodies, how they've lost friends to bullets on the street, how their hearts have visibly hardened over years of abandonment, first by parents then by social workers. And it's not just the pain of these children that needs to be told, it's also their struggle to do good, and the myriad ways in which that desire is blocked and smothered...If background matters for one defendant, it matters for all. We all live in a democracy, and that's what democracy means.

Russians are said to have an essentially pessimistic view of the world. Americans, by contrast, have a sense of optimism deeply rooted in our sense of fair play. This president has, at every opportunity, promoted the interests of his privileged class over that of all the others. Yes, Virginia, there is a class war. Norman Rockwell just painted about how nice it was to know your place.

Do you think there are very many Americans who aren't card carrying neo-cons who can tell you with a straight face that justice was served when Bush commuted Libby's sentence? When he was asked about the possibility of a full pardon the Cheshire chief executive said that nothing was off the table. That's real nail biter. There's one other little detail. Libby's sentence was commuted but his conviction wasn't overturned by a pardon. So he still has the right to appeal. And as long as his case is out on appeal, why would he be motivated to tell prosecutors or Congress anything new.

There you have it. The man, who, as governor of Texas, refused to commute the death sentence of a mentally retarded black man with an IQ of about 60 and the functional skills of a 7-year old boy, commutes the sentence of an affluent, loyal, criminal subordinate. Paul Begala summed it up when he wrote, "He's only compassionate toward conservatives."

George W. Bush's lack of respect not just for the American people, but for the very ideals this nation was founded upon, is so vast, so alien, and so bafflingly unchecked that outrage can lead to exhaustion. The president believes that his time in office will be vindicated by history. I just hope we don't have to wait that long to recover from the damages caused by his delusions of grandeur.

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