W straddles fence, commutes Libbys sentence

[mburbank]

W. commuted Libbys sentence, getting rid of jail time, but leaving the verdict, the penalty fee and the probation, which I didn't even know he was allowed to do. It's bizarre to me. It's like he's saying, yeah, Scooters guilty and he should be punished, but not much. When you concider that his fine will almost certainly cpme out of his legal deffence fund (or if forbidden that, out of a single speaking fee) and that he can walk right into a highly paid think tank or lobbying job, the jail time was the only real penalty. When your approval is as in the toilet as W's, why scruple at pardoning the guy? Does W think this 'commuting' makes him look better to anybody who think pardoning him would have looked bad? And for those who thought Libby deserved a pardon, doesn't it look cheap to leave old Scoots having to check in with a parole officer?

[MattJack]

I think you should change your avatar to a green GWB with crazy eyes and teeth.

I'm just going on the assumption that you think Nixon was a piece of shit, if not the shittiest president ever.

GWB has replaced Nixon in your heart.


*If you just found any picture of Cheney you could make it green, seeing how he already has a crazy mouth and eyes.

[mburbank]

I think they have some things in common, but while I think W is the worse President and has done more damage, he'll never achieve the epic quality Nixon has for me. I was a little kid when Tricky Dick was President and he looms over my childhood like a silent movie villian. Nixon was huge, operatic in his multidimensional awfulness. W is just a damn bag of crap.

Cheney is another matter altogether. He's SO fucking evil. If I were growing up today, he'd deffinitely fill the role Nixon filled for me.

[Preechr]

I think you're just scared to death of dicks, Max.

[george]

you are enough to scare anyone away from dicks.

dick.

[Perndog]

A child would have to have some warped parents to be raised with Dick Cheney as a looming evil figure. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but the kind of situations that make him bad are the kind of things that children really shouldn't be concerned about. "VP not part of executive branch" type things. Something is wrong if this is the stuff Mom and Dad are talking to Junior about.

[mburbank]

A.) I picked my own figures of looming evil, even as a child.
B.) Presidents color the culture and era. They don't call the Regan Era the Regan Era or use the phrase Nixonian without reason.
C.) This VP is certainly as powerful as any president.
D.) This VP has a fuck of a lot of very real blood and suffering on his hands. Who's your vote for figure of looming evil?

[MattJack]

So you still think Nixon takes the cake?

I obviously haven't done much reading on Nixon, or much reading outside of the phone book for that matter, but can you enlighten me on how he was worse than W?

I guess it's just because I'm young and W is such an easy target. Plus, I can't think of ONE good thing he has done really.

As far as looming evil goes, it is a toss up between Cheney, Gonzales, or Rumsfeld.

Actually, I just kind of lump them all together to form one super evil being.

I can't choose Bush because I think he's too stooopid to be evil. He's kind of like Wile E. Coyote to me, he just fucks a lot of shit up and makes an ass out of himself.

[mburbank]

You missundertsand. I think W is far worse.

BUT, I think Nixon is far more interesting, far more complicated and in addition, he was the imperial president when I was an impressionable kid, not a jaded adult.

Nixon was paranoid, where W is spoiled and petulant.
Nixon was a twisted genius, W is proud to be stupid.
Nixon was a controlling workaholic, W is a slacker bitch.
Nixon was working class, W was born to privilidge
Nixon saw himself as above the law, W doesn't really get what the law is or care if he breaks it, he just has to do what he wants.

W is a FAR worse president than Nixon, but he's way duller.

[Perndog]

My figures of looming evil, and I'm sorry for towing the Republican line on this one, are all of the wackos who say they want to kill me and destroy my country and my way of life. Not "my country" in the idealistic, patriotic sense, but in the sense of this being a pretty nice place to live which would be considerably less nice if some of those mullahs had their way. Not that they're really looming in my life, per se. But I think the white-collar power-mongering type of evil that has taken root in Washington pales in comparison to the kinds of things the real "bad guys" have proven able, willing, and quite eager to do.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

Anybody else think they should be shot or overthrown?

[AChimp]

Originally Posted by Perndog

My figures of looming evil, and I'm sorry for towing the Republican line on this one, are all of the wackos who say they want to kill me and destroy my country and my way of life. Not "my country" in the idealistic, patriotic sense, but in the sense of this being a pretty nice place to live which would be considerably less nice if some of those mullahs had their way. Not that they're really looming in my life, per se. But I think the white-collar power-mongering type of evil that has taken root in Washington pales in comparison to the kinds of things the real "bad guys" have proven able, willing, and quite eager to do.

I think that the white collar guys are worse, because at least the "real" bad guys have the decency to openly admit what they're doing and the solution of killing them first is relatively easy compared to prosecuting some rich guy for years.

[Perndog]

I have a lot of difficulty imagining that admitting you want to murder me and my family is worse than secretly plotting to do just about anything that American goverment criminals are doing. Yes, I'm sure the Americans are responsible in many ways for many deaths. But they are not urging us all to blow up civilians.

[Perndog]

And obviously we have about as much trouble with the solution of "killing them first" as we do with putting Mr. Libby in prison. The Ayatollah has been in power in Iran for far longer than it's taken us to deal with any individual domestically. And it took over a decade to get Saddam.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

I wasn't talking about killing Americans: I was talking about taking out the Bush administration (if you were confused there).

[mburbank]

in modern history, your white collar, non raving guys almost always rack up a way bigger body count by saving time on the rhetoric and dropping way more way bigger bombs.

To me, the casual, passionless acceptance that for you to have your way several thousand people will die and many more will be maimed, impoverished, made refugees, etc, is at very least equally evil as eye rolling craziness.

Both parties think the vast majority of others are expendable chunks of non humanity. I think the party with the most money will almost always kill the most people in the end.

[Perndog]

I agree wholeheartedly that the problem is that they don't value human life. However, two things make me continue to question your other conclusions. First, the eye rolling crazies really want a lot of people to die, which I seriously think is worse than simply being callous and allowing it. Second, the eye rolling crazies appear to be ready to procure the way bigger bombs themselves, making the money question moot.

[El Blanco]

I'll take the greedy bastard over the homicidal fanatic any day.

You can manipulate the greedy bastard a lot easier. At least you know what he is thinking. You can cut a deal with him.

Try reasoning with Abdul with his Semtex vest and a boner for wiping out infidels.

[Otto]

While the greedy bastard is easy to predict most of the time, there is the looming fact that the greedy bastard will always make sure to serve himself and his interests first. He is going to make sure that he is going to win and he will weasel his way through any kind of safeguards and pre-planning that you have set up.

Both the greedy bastard and the religious crazy are unpredictable, except the greedy bastard will give you the illusion that he works through a legal system.

It should also be known that the 2 have hybridized to produce what we know as the modern conservative politician: a horrible cross of underhanded economics, self-serving religion, and an insane urge to punish people who don't share his faith.

[mburbank]

I don't think you could categorize W or Cheney as 'greedy', unless what tey are greedy for is power. Since they are already the two most powerful people on earth, there's very little in the way of manipulating to be done.

And while I think fanatical terrorists 'want' worse things to happen than Cheney, I'll be the first to admit, I have no idea at all what Cheney 'wants'.
W wants to be more dad than his dad. Rove wants a permanent republican majority. What does Dick want? I don't think anyone but Dick has any idea, and maybe not even him.

The day may well be coming when what evil men 'want' is equal to what they achieve. But in our generation(s) I still think men with far more mundane 'wants' achieved far more evil. This to me is the very core of the human condition. The powerful 'good guys' (which is what everybody thinks of themselves) make a continual slaughterhouse of the world in the name of all the good things they want. The most crazy only want good for the five other people who believe exactly as they do. The least crazy want a good probably more than fifty percent of the people on earth could live with. And then they have a contest to see who can cause the most suffering. It's probably some hardwired biological imperative to keep the population of the species down. Intelligent design.

[Preechr]

mburbank~It is my dim view of human nature that MAKES me a liberal.