Hm, my headline makes no sense, but this one should: President Bush Commutes I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Prison Term.
The only thing that surprised me is that this farcical administration didn't wait until July 4, Independence Day to initiate this. They would have done it without a hint of irony. I'd laugh except for the fact that it's indisputably evident now that this is one of the most disastrous administrations in our modern American history in terms of both foreign AND domestic policies and leadership.
In the grand scheme of Bush's fuck ups--Iraq, Guantanomo, Katrina to name a few of the Big Ones--this is a hiccup (Although who knows?--the break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters initially appeared to be a hiccup as well...), a punctuation in the lengthy story of how not to run what was and could be a great country. What's particularly galling to me here is that in his statement outlining his reason to commute he states, "...I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive."
He concluded that the prison sentence was excessive? Excuse me, sir, but you are the very last person to able to determine what constitutes excessive and not. It is clear that Bush may be the most disconnected from reality individual on this planet, and this includes the isolated tribes of the Andaman islands.
Lately I've been asking myself--Are we as an American society so fractured and divided that, even if among our country's gutless leaders a Joseph Welch stepped forward, the proverbial audience today would not erupt into a unified applause as the gallery did for Welch soon after he pointedly asked McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
I don't know, but I'm going to stick around because I know the light is at the end of the tunnel in 2008. Or so I hope.
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Go read Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America."
Update: And what about Bush's pardon and commuting trend during his presidency?