Please Help... I'm Left Speechless... Don Nickles (OK) On Libby Pardon\Impeachment

[WillyT]

<snip>

“If jail time is issued, I would hope the president would issue a pardon,” said former Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., a member of Libby’s legal defense fund.

Libby’s lawyers say he should be given leniency because of his lengthy career in public service. They also note that nobody was charged with leaking Plame’s identity and suggest that Libby should not be punished as if he was a leaker.

“There is no evidence in the record here to support a finding that any underlying offense was actually committed by Mr. Libby or anyone else,” his lawyers wrote.

It is a common refrain in perjury cases, and one that points up a Washington truism: It usually is the cover-up that gets people in trouble.

During the scandal that led to President Clinton’s impeachment, while Democrats decried Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation as politics run amok, Republicans fell back on a familiar ground:

“This case is not about sex,” Nickles said in 1998. “This case is about perjury.”

Now Nickles and Libby’s other supporters find themselves on the other side, railing against Fitzgerald’s investigation.

“I think he became so wrapped up in the case, he lost perspective and said, “I gotta get something for this. I gotta get a scalp,” Nickles said recently.

Fitzgerald knew early on that Libby was not the source of the newspaper article that first identified Plame, the wife of an outspoken war critic. But the prosecutor said he needed to know whether others in the government authorized that leak and he referred in court to “a cloud” over Cheney.

“In short, Mr. Libby lied about nearly everything that mattered,” Fitzgerald said in court documents.

Nickles said it was unfair to draw comparisons with Clinton’s scandal, which was “a different level of intensity.” Nickles noted that Clinton was not convicted by the Senate and was spared prosecution in civilian court.

<snip>

Link: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003593227

"Nickles said it was unfair to draw comparisons with Clinton’s scandal, which was “a different level of intensity.” Nickles noted that Clinton was not convicted by the Senate and was spared prosecution in civilian court."

:wtf::nuke::wtf:

:argh:

[MiniMe]

1. Translation: Republicans don't care about the rule of law.

He didn't mean to lie, he was just trying to cover up the truth. It doesn't matter if he broke the law by doing it, because what he lied about was never charged as a crime, even if Fitz couldn't get to the truth because he lied. It wasn't the same intensity because Libby only lied to the FBI.

:spank: :banghead:

[blogslut]

2. The aspens have turned, boys.

Hey Scooter! Paris Hilton is going to jail and so are you.

[aquart]

3. Mr. Nickles, WHAT DID YOU DO????

Because this is not the speech of an honest man. This is the speech of a complicitous criminal.

[Solly Mack]

4. "...leniency because of his lengthy career in public service.."

Those fuckers think they've been doing us a favor with their (self-styled) "public service"?

Oh yeah - they've sacrificed for public service. (they've sacrificed the good and the will of people for their own gain)

LMAO

[bleever]

5. Mr. Fitzgerald was very clear that no one was charged with an "underlying offense"

precisely because of Scootie's obstruction and perjury.

He also strongly suggests that there might well have been an indictment of a particular offender, had Scootie not obstructed the lawful process of finding the truth.

[blogslut]

7. It may just piss off the Judge

That argument was lame to begin with and regardless of Walton's politics, If I were him, I would be insulted if they pulled that crap.

Yeah. He spent all those weeks in court and months before in pre-trial for absolutely no reason.

So, go ahead and argue that one, Team Libby™.

[bobthedrummer]

6. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

[TlalocW]

8. Nickles is about the biggest tool out there

He was a senator from Oklahoma in the 90s, and while it's hard to make our other senator, Jim Inhofe, look smart, Don was able to pull it off. I remember once in the late 1990s when he tried to blame the Ruby Ridge incident on Bill Clinton. Ruby happened in August 1992, and I don't know if he was trying to pull a fast one, or if he was too stupid to remember that elections take place in even numbered years, and the winners take office the next year, but somehow, through the mighty power of the Clenis, Bill somehow was responsible for the mess even though he hadn't even won the election yet.

I wrote a letter to the editor about that correcting him, and for some reason, it caught the eye of a white supremacist group from a town close to Tulsa as they sent me a care package consisting of their quarterly newsletter (with insults directed to me written in the margins) and a couple of fliers, in which I learned that the most endangered species in the world is the white woman.

Ah, morons.

TlalocW

[DeSwiss]

9. What's so incredible to me is....

...this whole outing of a CIA covert agent business was a major sticking point for, and supposed later triumph of the Republican party and their standard bearer, Ronald Reagan.

I remember reading all the news reports documenting the revelations by the Church Committee in the 70s, into CIA assassination plots, coup attempts and black bag operations. And in particular when CIA agent Philip Agee started outing agents and others with close ties to spooks. Which made the Repukes howl, fulminate and foam at the mouth. In 1982 under Reagan, they demanded and got tough laws with severe punishment for anyone who disclosed the identity of an agent.

But now, they ignore that. And only want charge traitors with perjury -- and when convicted they beg for presidential pardons. What happened to the "Law & Order" party?????

And more to the point, why does Don Nickles hate Ronald Reagan?????

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=8982

K&R!!!