It's Mister Bush's Neighborhood, (where kids grow up fast, and resignation is in the air!)

Olbermann: Bush, Cheney should resign




‘I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.’
getCSS("3088867")
MSNBC video

Special Comment: Bush, Cheney should resignJuly 3: Keith Olbermann questions Bush’s actions in commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby.
Countdown


Related Stories
What's this?
Bush commutes Libby's sentence
"Two Sets Of Rules"
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for June 6
Americans angry, cynical about Bush's Libby clemency
Reaction to Bush's Libby Decision

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 7:13 p.m. CT July 3, 2007


Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'


• Profile
“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”


That—on this eve of the 4th of July—is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

The man who said those 17 words—improbably enough—was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair’s-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.

“I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne’s voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world—but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust—a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.
And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us.

We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he should have been elected—indeed those who did not believe he had been elected—willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison—at the Constitutional Convention—said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish—the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens—the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

Click for related content
More Special Comments by Keith Olbermann
The News Hole: The blog of Countdown
Countdown's home page

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent Republican majority,” as if such a thing—or a permanent Democratic majority—is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.


The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.

“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

Click for related content
More Special Comments by Keith Olbermann
The News Hole: The blog of Countdown
Countdown's home page

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.
And in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate—instantaneously—became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting—in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush—and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal—the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one—and it stinks. And they know it.


Nixon’s mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.

It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to “base,” but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.

But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them—or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them—we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time—and our leaders in Congress, of both parties—must now live up to those standards which echo through our history: Pressure, negotiate, impeach—get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.
For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone—anyone—about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

What a great response to a very irresponsible president, though the majority of Americans have requested their resignations for quite some time, now.

What will his presidential library hold, besides "My Pet Goat" and "Bring 'Em On"?

What would you submit for our own Library of Truth to contradict the many fabrications this presidency has given to the American people?

While serving honorably in the U.S. Navy, and returning from the war-torn region before the illegal invasion of Iraq, my contribution would be the number of unnecessary deaths, their pictures, and the picture of flag-draped coffins this president and his henchmen forbade us to see.

From day one, when the 2000 election was stolen, the policy of this administration was self-serving to themselves and their corporate supporters, while millions of Americans lost their jobs to outsourcing, and our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and other members or our families lost their lives in an illegal war.

What would you contribute?

It's Mister Bush's Neighborhood! (where kids grow up fast, and cronies get a slap on the wrist!)

Here's another news flash!
Bush commutes Libby's prison sentence



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush commuted Monday the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.

Bush commuted the jail sentence of convicted White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

A commutation is distinct from a pardon, which is a complete eradication of a conviction record -- making it the same as if the person has never been convicted.
Bush has only commuted the jail term which means that the conviction remains on Libby's record and he must still pay a $250,000 fine.

Commutations are rarely granted, says CNN's chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. A commutation is a total right of the president and it cannot be challenged by any attorney or court, he said.

Earlier Monday, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that Libby could not delay serving his sentence, which would have put Libby just weeks away from surrendering to a prison.
In a written statement commuting the jail sentence, issued hours after Monday's ruling, Bush called the sentence "excessive," and suggested that Libby will pay a big enough price for his conviction.

"The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting," he said.
Don't miss

Judge orders Libby jailed
Judge threatened after sentence
GOP split on pardon

The President, who has been under great pressure to pardon Libby, said Libby was given "a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury."

The commutation does nothing to prevent Libby from appealing his conviction. And if the appeal fails or is still in process at the end of Bush's term, there is nothing to prevent the President from granting Libby a full pardon before he leaves office.

Libby's conviction is linked to the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

An outraged Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, spoke to CNN shortly after the ruling. The former ambassador had openly questioned the Bush administration's basis for invading Iraq.
He and his wife contend her name was leaked to the media as retribution for Wilson's comments.

"I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby," Wilson said. "I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor."
Wilson also said Bush's action today demonstrates that the White House is "corrupt from top to bottom."

Reaction on Capitol Hill has been swift. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said the President had "abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice."
"The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people," she said.
One of the few members of the GOP backing Bush, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, said the commutation was "the right thing to do."

"The prison sentence was overly harsh and the punishment did not fit the crime," said Blunt.
Plame's name became public when Robert Novak named her in his column on July 14, 2003.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has admitted he disclosed the information to a reporter. Novak pointed to another "senior administration official" -- Bush political adviser Karl Rove -- as the second source for his column.

No one has been charged with leaking classified information in the case, but a jury found Libby guilty of trying to deceive investigators and a grand jury during the investigation.
Bush was under great pressure to grant a pardon to Libby.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

We all knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time as to how The Last Emperor was going to thumb his nose at justice and "decide" to, again, circumvent the law.

Of course, the administration and the puppet master broke many laws, but none are MAN enough to come out and admit what they have done.

It won't be long before a pardon is issued for Libby while two border patrol officers spend their time in prison with no pardon.

Let's see if this is right:

1. Out a CIA operative in retalliation for telling the truth, questioning the reason for invading a non-threatening country, already subdued by a previous war, lie to congress and a panel of federal judges, and become a scapegoat - means a slap on the wrist and a fine he could pay with corporate and "fan" donations.

2. Work for the Border Patrol, do your job according to orders while repelling known drug smugglers and drug king pins and go to jail for trying to stop them using extreme force.

Some compromise. Where's shrub's compassion for their families? Where's the concern for their well being? Why couldn't those two officers recieve a commuted sentence, as well?

It's no longer "We The People", the "decider" decided it's "Me The Leader".