(no subject)

Bush commutes Libby prison sentence

I'd comment, but what is there to say? The guy's been convicted in a court of law, but instead of using the appeals process like any other citizens, he has friends in high places overrule the court.

I think it's long past time that the president's power to grant reprieves and pardons was amended out of the Constitution. It is so regularly used for corrupt and partisan reasons, and so rarely used for humane or merciful ones, that I question its purpose.

But this latest move is so typical of an administration that has ignored, sidestepped, and blatantly violated the law in pursuit of power that it hardly surprises me. These are a gang of criminals who have no respect for the law or the Constitution. That this president and vice president have remained in office, unimpeached, is a shame and an embarrassment to the entire nation.

weekend

soccer_fox and I went to hear Ellis Paul on Friday night; he did a wonderful concert! Then we went down to my mum's on Saturday and came back yesterday. In between, we helped do a little more clearing of the mass of detritus that my dad left behind, did a few odds and ends of tasks for my mum, and took her out to dinner at her favourite restaurant. We also drove up to Williamsburg and spent an hour or two wandering around the British Army encampment that was the focus of their annual "Under the Red Coat" event. john_arundel has a great summary of the event in his journal!

I heard that my niece Sarah is off to graduate school in Wales, that my sister Victoria is thinking of moving out to New Mexico, and that my sister Cornelia and her partner have been taking their dachshund around to pet adoption fairs in hopes of finding a dog he will like to adopt so as to assuage his separation anxiety following the death of their other hound. Of course, since it's them, the one it sounds as if they have settled on has multiple chronic physical and mental health problems...

Traffic was awful going down, not too bad coming back. We talked a lot in the car, making plans and discussing all sorts of random topics: friends, public policy, books...

After we got home, we walked over to the county library (as opposed to the town library) and I got a card and we checked out books and CDs, then walked back through the park. The far end of the path runs past a number of migrant labor dormitories apartment blocks patronized by young Latino men, some of whom heckled us and shouted sexual innuendos at us as we walked past. Nice. Classy. We had dinner (NJS made a delicious salad with bacon and mushrooms and spring onions) and watched "Hear My Song", a movie I love that she had not seen before. The weather was lovely--cool and breezy evening following a warm but not humid day.

I'm feeling very out of sorts. The weekend was nice, and I was really happy most of the time. But at some point last night a great funk settled on me, and I don't quite know how to shift it. Work seems depressing and boring, nothing seems very happy and cheerful; I just feel like crawling into a hole and pulling it in after me. Not good. Hopefully I will snap out of it as suddenly and mysteriously as I snapped into it.

pointed to by kmusser

a very insightful blogger

on Libby

"Scooter Libby pays no fine, he suffers no damage to his employment prospects or his reputation among people he cares about. Jail was the only thing that would be any sort of payment for lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice. Now it's gone. I don't care how conservative you are -- that's just wrong. If you're down with this, you are way, way deep in the Crazification Factor."

and on the administration

"Our representatives -- and to a great degree we as a culture -- are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. You reveal a man's corrupt, or lying, or incompetent, and what does he do? He resigns. He attempts to escape attention, often to aid in his escape of legal pursuit. Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty ... dammmnnnn.

We are faced with utterly shameless men. Cheney and the rest are looking our representatives right in the eye and saying 'You don't have the balls to take down a government. You don't have the sheer testicular fortitude to call us lying sonuvabitches when we lie, to stop us from kicking the rule of law and the Constitution in the ass. You just don't. What's beyond that abyss -- what that would do to our government and our identity as a nation -- terrifies you too much. So get the fuck out of our way.'"