We don't retract our skepticism that Bush will either not pardon or wait until the last mminute.

Yes - Commute now - just at the last minuet - Add in some language to try to appease Fitz & Co.. BUT - A pardon was withheld pending neocon good behaivior - Had Dubya let Scooter be jailed - he would have had the Scooter pissing all over him now - If he had pardoned Scooter now - he would have poured sugar on Oversight committees and he would have lost what little leveridge he now has over the Scooter faction and EOVP.
Let's just dispense with any analysis that includes elements not related to Bush's calculation of self-interest in various forms.

Meant last minute - But we have not read any commentary yet - Just heard Tweety and saw Olberman /w Wilson.

Wilson benefits from the commutation because it will power up his screenplay arc. Besides - the damage has been done.

Pardon for Conrad? If Blair asks. Bush has compassion for wealthy and influential people - His Tee-Has 'justice' is reserved for the lowly.

Why no pardon for Paris Hilton - Her denial of drug use was just the sort of 'Just Say No' message the government needs now in the wake of all the college cynicism toward the Bong Hits 4 Midge Dector (or was it Jesus?) decision.

MY EYES!!!!!!!!

My Eyes? btw - sorry about all the typos and misspells above - An accountability moment ...

Gunter Grass on Charlie Rose — He has pardoned himself for his Waffen-SS days.

Well - Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) sums it up pretty well:

“Well, George did it. Made sure that Scooter wouldn't flip rather than do jail time. He commuted Libby's sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn't talk, but retaining Libby's right to invoke the Fifth. - This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.”

That's basically what we were saying above. Ofcourse Bush is obstructing - why wouldn't he? It's just so painful hearing the pathetic cover stories - Oh by the way, Joe DiGenova needs to shut his mouth or put on a pair of clown shoes.

The Bubble Boy continues blightly down his path of immolation in desparation that it indeed will be a conflagration signaling the Pheonix Rising.
Just as every anointed one through time immortal has considered themselves the exception that will rise above the madding crowd and channel providential guidance to victory, our first true president in the mold of the divine right of kings streches to Godly intervention in the guise of whispered voices beyond the ken of the common ear.
Surely a Greek tragedy in progress, but difficult to conceive of an Oedipus complex for Barbara. Not so of Condie as an alluring Siren beckoning Jack Armstrong to wreck and ruin.
Prep school hubris can only perceive Scooter's transgressions as akin to getting caught with a pretty girl and a bottle of booze in your dorm room. Maybe warranting a change of institutions but not complete explusion from the good old boys club.

What do you think about this Doc? You think Hez is wasting limited resources in Iraq just to get some Axis tats?

http://www.firedoglake.com/...

If Joe and Val's attorneys are wise - they got a good break today - Tony Snow - who speaks for the President - made a drive attack on Wilson's credibility at his press avail - In the context of justifying the commute - Wilson should be able to exploit this in his civil suit. Snow probably can't help himself - He's not as bright as he thinks he is and he probably just couldn't resist bringing in a jab at Wilson based on material that's been pretty well refuted. Gee Dubs wanted the commute to be firewalled off from their operations against Wilson and Snow tied them together today in his moment of supercillious snark.
Doc - do you know if we still produce piano wire in this country or do we have to buy even that in China?

“Mr. Fitzgerald knew early on that Mr. Armitage was *the* source of *the* leak,” says some guy on the PBS NewHour - This talking point started with Byron York and to be honest we never thought it would gain ground -

It's like saying the Center always scores the touchdown because he's the first one who touched the ball (presumably Armitage_ - rather than the one who actually ran the ball into the endzone.

Anyway - this guy on the NewsHour - Bill Otis, then says Scooter deserves clemency, in part, because he has no drug problem - Can you believe these freaks - they really think that someone who is convicted of having a drug problem is worse and more jail worthy than than Scooter -Further, Bill Otis actually cited those infamouse “Libby Letters” as a good reason for clemency because so many high end people vouched for Libby,
In a more sane America - Scooter would have been very embarassed and ashamed by those Libby Letters - mostly rote belches of praise coming from a motley crew of war criminals and policy wastrals. Don Rumsfeld? Wolfowitz?

Has Olbermann gone delusional? MSNBC has been flacking his show claiming the White House will not be *spared* his “Special Comment”. A Confucian would be justified in observing that as a society we all have lost the “Mandate from Heaven” and deserve what comes Next.

It just never ends. Satyricon was on IFC the other night. We neglected to see if Fellini anticipated the raised eyebrow. But there is no doubt that somehow genius foresaw through the time vortex haze the looming bulk of Joe DeGenova and the NRO chatter.

Democrats as usual are pathetic in getting their message out AND THEY CONTROL CONGRESS. Before an 8:00 AM commute today we heard and saw the Movement, Neocons and even Republicans on message across TV and radio and all complicating the story, knowing details will beat down the will and interest of the American people.

Of course it is obstruction of justice. But those words and those ideals don't mean the same thing they did in the 1970s and 1990s compared to the ruins of the proto Leader State. These are the days the Stiftung recalls Lloyd Bridges from Airplane! regretting he picked a bad day to quit sniffing glue or the like. The pain.

One thing the Clinton(s) were good at was the ability to to steer (not control) the news narrative for a while - confounding their enemies.

It was never a solid steer because they were dancing on reactionary heat coils most of the time.

But Tweety was puzzled today that HRC commented on the Commute when she had defered commenting on a pardon - But Tweety never stopped to realize that Bush's Commutating was very different and far more clever and cynical than a mere pardon. The waiting pardon is contingent on the Scooter Lobby behavving.

Tweety didn't even try to elaborate or make the case that HRC changed her tune (which she really did not) - He just showed the two videos and acted as if it was obvious HRC flip flopped.

The irony of this is that Tweety just may have caused all of this - By some accounts . it was his ENDLESS misquoting of Wilson that provoked Matalin to advise Scooter to talk to Russert first -

Tweety seems to think he has license to paraphrase people and imply his paraphrases are quotes - Anyway, Comment is glad this process started - it was a good break on the radicals in the Admin and we are amused that it may have been from a Tweety error.

Even now when the Scooter lobby says “Wilson lied” they are actually refering to things Tweety said, not things Wilson actually said.

Olberman is delusional - but maybe that's okay - The delusion powers his show and the show is making him millions. But it will burn out - Though if he saves his money, the compound interest on Earnings From Delusion Inspiration , will help him down the road.
Olberman even mimics the Morrow body movements -without an ironic wink - when he does his Special Comment.

How about that Jeannie Most?

Olbermann is eminently watchable, well-written, etc. Marketing idea the WH gives damn what he says is, however, typical of MSNBC's third place mentality (although his ratngs are good).

Jeannie Most? Her 90 second stories are hardly the most offensive in CNN landscape of Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck, the pantomine of the Situation Room (even the name reflects desperation, and they have hypnotized Blitzer to brand it every 15 seconds). He went to SAIS and I understand at one time had a mind and soul before he cashed in for studied vacuity. Larry King is now simply almost necrophilic.

Cooper? Is he trying to parody bad haiku? The Noon CNN International Hour used to be the only real news shown on cable across the board. The few times we've seen it lately the Time Warner/Hotlanta vibe is noticeable.

For allegedly world's most powerful Nation's populace and representative government to be so willfully uninformed about world events (outside of Israel and Iraq) is inviting Divine recalibration. Dean Wurmser put it best: “Fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

In fact, historians may well say that the single best outcome of this whole Wilson affair is that Americans now pronounce the country “Neezher” instead of Neyeger or worse. So there's that.

David Wurmser said. “Fat, dumb, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.?.?.?”

Oh - that waa Dean Wormer ...

At least Larry King has Rickles on for some old skool laughs - to hear about Dino back in the day ...

Tip for Keith Olberman - as you note, his show is often well written - But he should remember the power of truth - In that he should stop pretending the WH cares what he says - Maybe they will some day, but they do not now. So he should adopt a different aesthetic - one that assumes he is more underground - not read by worthies. Not yet.

Then he should cancel or update his YouTube “Oddball” BS - Those dumb vids have zero production cost but so do other things.

When we note above that a Tweety's error may have caused much, we didn't mean to imply that Tweety cause the actual crime - He just enabled and inspired an aspect of its unfolding.

Dean Wormer/Dean Wurmser, oops. Shows approaching senility.

I doubt Meyrav would approach Otter in the vegetable aisle, but if she did, the mental image alone would impose a decade of electroshock bills to erase.

In the next Animal House - Dean Wormer will tell one of war hawks gawking from an admiring critical distance at ROTC drills - “Fat, angry, and necon is no way to go through college, son.”

“it was clear from very early in the investigation that [Plame] qualified under the relevant statute...as a covert agent.”
~Patrick Fitzgerald
Court filing (5-25-07)
(conveying secret knowledge)