Cheney unhappy Bush did not pardon former aide Libby

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday he was unhappy with then-President George W. Bush's refusal to pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's onetime chief of staff who was convicted in the CIA leak case.

"I was clearly not happy that we, in effect, left Scooter sort of hanging in the wind," Cheney said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union with John King." He acknowledged a "fundamental difference of opinion" with Bush on the matter.

A federal jury in Washington convicted Libby of lying and obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had criticized the Iraq war.

Bush earlier commuted Libby's 2-1/2-year prison sentence but before leaving office in January, Bush refused to give Libby an outright pardon.

Cheney said Libby had been unjustly accused and deserved a pardon but Bush disagreed. It was one of the few areas that Cheney has publicly said he disagreed with Bush on during their eight years in the White House.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52E1...

[aquart]

1. Still?

My, he does keep harping on it.

[Festivito]

27. This "news" LIE pops up every week or two.

No way is Cheney unhappy about this.

A pardon would put Bush/Cheney in legal trouble... more legal trouble, because Irv "scooter" Libby could be COMPELLED to testify, i.e. CANNOT plea the fifth.

Under the commutation * gave scooter, if scooter testifies, he can remain silent and protect his Bushy buddies pleading the fifth.

Bush/Cheney just have to keep scooter happy. Adding the occasional smoke screen of saying * should have pardoned him lets the idiot ranks of the RW to assure themselves that he should have been pardoned and all their problems really emanate from W** and not their easily co-opted ideology.

[Pharlo]

28. Well, if that is the case and Bush's not pardoning Libby was

part of a legal coverup, Obama should pardon Libby so that Scooter can be compelled to testify. I don't look for that to happen anytime soon.

[Festivito]

33. That would be an interesting approach.

I wonder if scooter would take it then. He can always continue to lie as a pardoned person.

If it came specifically with provisions for testifying, he could then make a last minute refusal and the press would gladly paint the mean libruls for THEM.

It would have to be set insuring that if he did not testify or if he lied, he'd lose the pardon AND THE COMMUTATION. A tricky point of law between two presidents.

The rest of the fallout would be interesting. It was too hot for * to do it -- at that time -- before the economy broke, breaking his chances of a simply controversial exit from office into don't call US we'll call you exit from office and from Republicans in general.

Dangerously fun.

[zbdent]

2. "hanging in the wind" apparently is Repubspeak for

not clearing him, but preventing absolutely any threat of any type of punishment for the actions ... and thus taking anything that might have forced him to testify to reduce or eliminate any of his punishment ...

[Supersedeas]

25. sad isn't it

[saigon68]

29. Cheney should go and ask Larry Craig for a date.

[struggle4progress]

3. The Misunderestimated Mr. Cheney (John Dean / 2007)

The Vice President's Record of Willfully Violating the Law, And Wrongly Claiming Authority to Do So
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jun. 29, 2007
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070629.html

[struggle4progress]

4. Hail to the chief (Boston Globe / 2006)

Dick Cheney's mission to expand -- or 'restore' --the powers of the presidency

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | November 26, 2006

ANN ARBOR, MICH. -- In July 1987, then-Representative Dick Cheney, the top Republican on the committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal, turned on his hearing room microphone and delivered, in his characteristically measured tone, a revolutionary claim.

President Reagan and his top aides, he asserted, were free to ignore a 1982 law at the center of the scandal. Known as the Boland Amendment, it banned US assistance to anti-Marxist militants in Nicaragua.

"I personally do not believe the Boland Amendment applied to the president, nor to his immediate staff," Cheney said ...

Cheney bypassed acts of Congress as defense secretary in the first Bush administration. And his office has been the driving force behind the current administration's hoarding of secrets, its efforts to impose greater political control over career officials, and its defiance of a law requiring the government to obtain warrants when wiretapping Americans. Cheney's staff has also been behind President Bush's record number of signing statements asserting his right to disregard laws ...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/11...

[Skittles]

5. probably the only thing that bastard bush ever got right

[BulletproofLandshark]

7. If Bush got it right, Libby would still be behind bars. n/t

[Skittles]

9. true, dat

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. "Cheney unhappy"

Those words make me estatic.

[47of74]

8. Do I care what that old windbag thinks or feels?

In a word, NO.

[Faygo Kid]

11. I do. He must be investigated and prosecuted. This can't happen again.

Cheney will revise history until his death. And then others will take up his cause.

It's up to us to correct his version. You're damned right I care what the "old windbag" thinks, says and does.

[Vehl]

10. lol.

"I was clearly not happy that we, in effect, left Scooter sort of hanging in the wind"

[Jefferson23]

12. Odd that Cheney is still going on about that.

Scooter was given 400 hours of community service to fulfill, maybe he is mowing Bush's lawn as part of that requirement.

[Lucky Luciano]

13. Hey DICK, you are irrelevant. Fuck off.

[pacalo]

14. I bet Cheney's harping about this to the media is for Libby's benefit.

Cheney may have been given reason to believe Libby may blab about something -- Libby did "stick his neck out" for Cheney &/or Bush. I'd be pretty ticked off if I was the one "sort of hanging in the wind" by the good ol' boy cabal which protected & gave special favors to every other stooge working for them.

[Red1]

15. Cheney

needs to get outa that wheelchair and do some joggin. build himself up..get that ole HEARTBEAT a poundin..be good for the country to

[Mithreal]

18. I want to see him healthy for the UN's war crimes trials. nt

[rocktivity]

16. Toro turd, Dick--YOU decided not to pardon Libby

and I believe you did it quite deliberately as part as your legal strategy against the investigation getting any closer to you. You would have been more than happy to let Libby go to jail and not if it kept you, Rove, and little Georgie out of it. You're just rewriting history now, trying to make Georgie look like a tough, decisive, independent leader. HAH!


rocktivity

[Mithreal]

17. That should be the least of his worries. nt

[northernlights]

19. well boo hoo hoo

Like I give a flying fuck how darth cheney, the torturing, murdering thieving slimeball, feels.

I'm still unhappy that darth cheney still isn't wearing orange with steel bracelets.

I'm still unhappy that darth cheney hasn't been charged with war crimes.

I'm still unhappy that darth cheney isn't standing in front of a tribunal at the Hague.

[MasonJar]

20. I am unhappy that Bush and Cheney tried to destroy our country and

its Constitution and that they murdered, tortured, spied, and lied in my name.

[totodeinhere]

21. Cheney wants to make it look like he is not a puppet master pulling Shrub's strings after all.

But don't fall for any of Cheney's bullshit.

[shanti]

22. ahhh

go fuck yourself, ya dick! i detest that subhuman.

[mascarax]

23. "World To End Tomorrow, Cheney Pissed Dubya Didn't Pardon Scooter"

Glad you have your priorities in order, Dick.

(But then...that's why you couldn't go to Vietnam too...those pesky priorities of yours!)

[earcandle]

24. so will his get his assasination crowd after Bush?

hmmmm... he is bitching a lot about this one. 

[cosmicone]

26. This would make a great movie-plot

Imagine Cheney using the evil Halliburton goons to do an extraordinary rendition of the Bushes to Iraq and torturing him in Abu Ghraib in a fit of rage!!

[spanone]

30. 'cheney unhappy' makes me happy

[boilinmad]

31. Oh well....

.....I'm unhappy Cheney was born.

[Arugula Latte]

32. May your rage corrode your insides like Dran-o, Dickhead.

[apnu]

34. Apparently Cheney's interpertation of Vice Presidential retirement is to be a cry baby.

And this guy ran a cabal of murders, extortionists, and thieves?

[burning rain]

35. The master is displeased with the apprentice...

Will he use the lightning-from-his-fingertips attack?

[Doctor_J]

36. How many months will this qualify as LBN?