Justin's Thurday Political News 07.05.07

Posted by Justin Baragona on 07.05.2007

Scooter Libby gets his jail time commuted, Glenn Beck is a moron and Obama raises a buttload of money

Welcome to another edition of Justin's Thursday Political News. I apologize for the lack of a column last week, I can go ahead and try to blame it on the Benoit story, or the fact that I contributed to two columns last week, but in reality I was just a little burned out and didn't have it in me to write a full column. As for this week, it is a bit of a short column, not because of lack of news, but because I'm writing it on the 4th of July and I want to enjoy a little bit of the holiday! This isn't to say that providing substantial political news to my vast readership doesn't bring me enjoyment, just that none of you are bringing me an ice cold beer and brat off the grill, and that is what I'm craving right now. With that said, let's jump right into the news so I can get my barbecue on.


The President had this to say about 'Scooter' Libby's prison sentence:


"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."


Please, raise your hand if you actually thought Scooter Libby was going to serve a minute behind bars. OK, for all of those with their hands up, I have a bridge in Brooklyn up for sale at a great price. I will state this, though. I figured that Dubya would just go ahead and issue a pardon. Instead, he states that Libby deserves some form of punishment for what he did, and that he'll go ahead and pay the fine ($250,000) and serve probation. However, it was just too harsh to force him to serve any prison time. If the President didn't commute his sentence this week, then Libby was going to have to report to prison, as the judge in the case stated that Libby could not remain free while he waited for his appeal to go through.

Now, there are a couple of ways to look at this thing. One way to look at it as is that the President was going to pardon Libby the whole time, but wanted to wait until the appeals process was over and there were no other avenues to take. Bush probably felt that the whole process would take quite a while and take until the end of his term as President. Therefore, he could go ahead and issue the pardon while exiting the White House and not have to deal with much aftermath. We could state that the President's hand was forced when Libby was not going to be allowed to remain free while waiting on his appeal, and Bush did not want a loyal member of his Vice President's cabinet to have to serve prison time, so he then went ahead and just got rid of the jail time portion of his sentence. There's always the possibility that he'll still pardon him outright before he leaves office, but right now he's making sure that Libby isn't wearing the orange jumpsuit.

We can look at this another way. It could be that this was the plan of the White House from the beginning, which was have a fall guy (Libby) and allow him to be convicted of charges relating to the Plame case. Libby agrees to this as he is assured by the White House that he will not have to serve a day in prison. Now, he can go ahead and try to win his case and use all legal methods available to him. He can even use the best lawyers money can buy (His buddy, Richard Carlson, raised millions of dollars for his legal defense.) However, at the end of the day, he is in all likelihood going to be convicted. Therefore, the President will commute the part of his sentence where he serves time, leaving him to just pay a fine (And his fine will probably be paid from the money raised for his defense.) With Libby being convicted and and having a portion of his sentence left intact (the fine and probation), the President can point that justice has been obtained in the case and leave it at that. He gets to point out that Libby was not pardoned and that he paid his debt to society, while at the same time thumbing his nose at everybody.



This is from Glenn Beck's show on Headline News on June 28th:


BECK: Sometimes the Insiders go too far. "Evil Conservative Industries," according to the Insiders -- and they've made an ad for it -- "The future is now. Welcome to Evil Conservative Industries Bluff Pointe's Mexinol Plant Number 2," and it's a giant refinery.

"At Evil Conservative Industries, we know four things for certain. The country needs cheap, alternative fuel source. Two, the human body is 18 percent carbon. Three, carbons can be turned into hydrocarbons. Four, we have a buttload of illegal aliens in our country."

I don't think we need to make the illegal aliens into fuel.

"Evil Conservative Industries is proud to present the fuel of the future, Mexinol. A clean-burning, cheap alternative to gasoline, Mexinol's future seems unlimited in its potential. There are other gasoline alternatives available such as ethanol. However, Mexinol has certain advantages from corn. Corn has to be grown, harvested, and processed. With Mexinol, raw materials come to you in a seemingly never-ending stream. Go ahead and purchase that boat-sized SUV. There's plenty of Mexinol for everyone."


This is another poor pathetic attempt by Glenn Beck at humor. He really, really wants us to think he is outrageous and funny, but all he has in his arsenal race-baiting,making fun of liberals or just making out and out bigoted statements. While at first glance, you can look at this and state that he is denouncing this 'advertisement' by stating that the 'Evil Conservatives' are going too far now and that he doesn't believe that illegal aliens should be used as fuel, is that really the point here? That he doesn't believe people should be used as fuel? No, the reason he is even doing a segment like this is because he knows that his audience (or at least a large portion) believes that immigrants, specifically illegal, are lower forms of humanity. He;s playing to his audience and giving them what they want: bigoted 'humor' to make them feel better about themselves. Perhaps I'm merely giving him too much credit and in reality he is just an untalented hack who is trying to use race in humor because he's seen far funnier and smarter people than him use it to good advantage (ie. Chris Rock, George Carlin, Bill Maher, etc.). Either way, his show is useless so don't give him the time of day.



Barack Obama's campaign manager made this comment in regards to the Senator's fundraising for the 2nd quarter, where he raised almost $33 million:


"One of our opponents is also the quasi-incumbent in the race, who in our belief will and should lead just about every national poll from now until the Iowa caucuses. Expect nothing different and attach no significance to it."


This is a good statement from Obama's camp, as they are making sure to keep expectations lowered in regards to Obama's position in the '08 race. However, you know they are just tickled pink that he raised more money than Hillary Clinton in the 2nd quarter and feel that they have a real chance of getting the nomination. The polls do show that Clinton is still the frontrunner, holding a significant lead over Obama and John Edwards. It should also be noted, though, that the polls show that Hillary is way more divisive and that many voters out there hold strong opinions about her one way or the other. Therefore, there is a large chunk of voters that would vote for her opponent merely because her opponent isn't Hillary. With the big chunk of change that Obama has in his coffers, he can keep a large presence and stay fresh in the minds of the voting public. Now, if he can just use that presence to his advantage...


Well, that is going to do it for me this week. I don't have any witty ending statement here and no particular column to pimp this week. I will say read all of the most recent columns that have been posted in the Politics zone and I hope that everyone had a wonderful Independence Day. I'll be back next week with more news in the realm of politics.