Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Commutation of Libby's sentence
Before people get too high and mighty about the "unprecedented corruption" of the Bush administration commutation of Libby's sentence they really ought to take another look at Clinton's outright pardons, especially Clinton's pardon spree in January, 2001. Remember Marc Rich, Pincus Green, and Linda Jones?
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2 comments:
Hi Dad. I don't keep up with the news too terribly much so I'm not exactly sure what's going on in the Libby case. However, I am curious about your interest in implicitly defending the Bush administration by comparing its deficiencies to that of its predecessors. As a very bright critical individual and a man of faith, I am surprised at what appears to be an unwillingness to demand a higher level of integrity from even those leaders whose politics might be most similar to your own. Why dismiss criticism, merely because its object isn't novel?
The argument also falls, as I feel too much political discourse does these days, into the dreaded Culture Wars trap of right vs. left as if no more subtlety exists in the body politic than warring partisanship.
To put it bluntly, I'm sure there are many critics of the administration's recent decision who are or were critical of Clinton.
I understand that there may be plenty of folks who obscure the lack of precedent when attacking the current president. But why only address that possibility while ignoring the possibility that the criticism might be legitimate at all. I wouldn't bother to point the tactic out, except that it seems somewhat habitual on the blog. And in this case especially it feels like skirting the issue.
JT, you should take my statement at face value. I am reacting to those people who claim that this is an example of "unprecedented corruption," that is, to those who claim that the Bush administration is uniquely bad. I made no effort to defend Bush's actions.
It is very relevant to compare his actions to the previous administrations. Why? Because among those who immediately accused Bush of placing himself above the law and indulging in "cronyism" were Bill and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Hillary, who claims to be qualified for the presidency at least partially because of her participation in the previous administration is the front runner to be our next president. If Hillary were merely stating her opinion about the Bush administration, her hypocrisy would be bad enough; but to somehow use it to distinguish berself from Republicans is stunning!
One could try to argue that she should not be tarnished with her husband's sins. However, her own brother, Hugh Rodham, made money off of Clinton's pardons, and her senatorial campaign benefitted from Clinton's pardons. Some of his pardons had no other explanation than to position her more effectively in her race.
I agree that my blog entries are one-sided. That's because I often write them in response to outrageous hypocrisy.
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