Shakespeare's Portia claimed: "The quality of mercy is not strained..."
Perhaps George W once read The Merchant of Venice, or maybe, once, he at least adjusted some venetian blinds.
Whatever the case, he seems to take Portia's words to heart. Issuing mercy to his good friend, Scooter Libby, despite the fact that he has said, "I respect the jury's decision," it's unlikely that our plucky president is suddenly going to respect the rule of law now. And so, he has shown mercy, because, as Portia says: "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
Unfortunately, this mercy did not seem to be available to the 131 prisoners Bush signed execution orders for when he was Governor of Texas.
He's likely making up for lost time. That makes 130 pardons for friends, political associates, donors, cronies...now, where did I put Jack Abramoff's number?
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This is a damned outrage on so many levels, it's hard to define them all. Here's a few to start off.
Justice. For anyone who's cared enough to follow the details of the trial, there was indeed "overwhelming evidence" (to use the judge's description) of Scooty's crimes. And the judge's sentence fit the sentencing guidelines. So where's the justice in commuting the jail term at the federal fitness center like the one our infamous governor used?
Hypocrisy. Didn't W once claim there were too many leaks, and that if anyone in his administration was found to be the source of the CIA agent outing, he wouldn't be working in the administration anymore? Not only was that not true (unless, of course, the VP's office isn't part of the administration -- hey I'm starting to see a pattern here), he actually commuted the sentence of the convicted felon whose crimes were attempts to prevent discovery of the sources of the leak. Where's the media on this one? Couldn't they replay, at least once, that scolding claim from the president?
Hypocrisy (again). Sorry to have to bring this up, because I'm no particular supporter of Clinton. But it aggravates me to no end to see that the same people who were willing to remove a sitting president from office for the mere crime of lying about his marital infidelity (or eating the last cookie from the cookie jar, or anything else -- it didn't matter) have now discovered that actual perjury and obstruction of justice, as determined in a court of law, during an investigation of a crime that has damaged the CIA and thus our national security, are not serious offenses. They're even holding fund raisers for him!
This administration and its supporters have no shame.
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