I subscribe to most major news feeds. I do it because some media like to report some things, others will report other things. It’s just the nature of the beast of trying to stay somewhat informed. Because of this, I subscribe to MSNBC. They’re really good at getting the garbage news like what Paris Hilton did to entertain herself in jail. However, they pound people to death with opinion articles as if they are news. As such, I’m constantly battered with Keith Olbermann “headlines” as if it meant something. Today’s meltdown is still on the Libby commutation. It’s very typical Olbermann stuff. He ties in something John Wayne said 47 years ago that has nothing to do with what’s occurring now, and just runs with that relying on all kinds of false assumptions. One to wit:
We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he should have been electedindeed those who did not believe he had been electedwillingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.
Did this really happen? Best I recall in 2001, people claimed otherwise, something to the tune of this:
That’s from a website called “Bush Stole the 2000 Election”. No sooner than the 2004 election was over, they added that election to the battle-cry as well. There was no honeymoon. Dan Rather wept and immediately started doing “features” on everything evil that was Republican. That’s the way I remember it, I’d like for someone to prove otherwise. So, after taking a quote that means nothing to the situation, then applying a complete re-write of history, Olbermann runs with that by adding:
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.
How did he do that? The first nine months of 2001 Bush was perceived as being completely inept and was losing support very rapidly even within his own party and supporters as the country struggled with a recession the media was calling a depression that they blamed on Bush even though it preceded his election. The Chinese had hijacked a military plane and Bush wasn’t looking too good in getting it released. Olbermann’s making the point that Bush’s ineptitude of the first nine months of 2001 was his process of honing a razor-sharp point and stabbing the nation in the back with it. Nothing about those first nine months is farther from the truth, or reality, of what Olbermann is stating here. He doesn’t stop there:
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 Madisonat the Constitutional Conventionsaid 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 wishthe President will keep you out of prison?
Olbermann, the appeals process was pretty much shot. The appellate courts were refusing to hear his appeals. It was the refusal of the appellate courts to hear his appeals that caused the judge to order him to jail. When that happens, you’re pretty much done for. For all intents, the legal process was over. Libby had been ordered to jail. Now, Olberman’s making the assumption that the only penalty handed out to Libby was prison. Libby’s career is pretty much over. He was a lawyer by trade. He can’t be a lawyer any more because he’s a felon. Bush didn’t let him off scott free, he’s lost his job, his career, and faces a $250,000 fine to boot. Olbermann omits all of that for a reason.
So, having tossed in a straw-man argument, flat out lied, mis-represented facts, and omitted other facts, Olbermann comes to this conclusion:
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nations citizensthe 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.
Sorry Keith, he’s still the President of the United States of America. He’s till YOUR President as well as mine. He still has the right, when the legal system gets out of whack and puts politics over professional ethics, to make it right. A full pardon would have been OK with me because I can’t see where a law was actually broken. According to the prosecutors in this case, no law was proven to have been broken. What did Libby actually “obstruct”. According to more rational people who understand the law, there was no reason to charge Libby with anything. Therefore, the charges they “proved” against Libby were purely a political hack-job spurred on by over-zealous politicians and extremely biased media. Our Founding Fathers gave Bush the authority to over-ride mob-rule legal lynchings and Bush exercised his right to do so. In much simpler terms, they gave our President the right to protect people from Keith Olbermann and Nancy Pelosi. When people like Olbermann think they can use the media to circumvent the law, we’ve got a much bigger problem than a President refusing to allow someone to go to jail.
I’ve always felt, and sometimes proven here, that Big Brother is not the government, it’s the media re-writing history to suit their agenda. Keith Olbermann is just proving it one more time. And, as long as the media editors look the other way, he won’t be the last. As long as people allow this garbage to go unchecked, editors have no reason to care.
Some very divergent reactions from people I respect so far:
- The Moderate Voice says Olbermann’s outrage, although bordering on schtick, should not be ignored because it represents the dis-enfranchised independents. I disagree in that I think Olbermann is pandering to those who agree with him in the first place. The dis-enfranchised independents were already dis-enfranchised for other reasons. The most outraged so far are the people you expect to be outraged. The people who saw this for what it was in the first place fully expected a pardon. We’re not getting that either. So, if Bush lost anything from anyone, it’s probably the conservatives who felt a pardon was in order.
- Orin Kerr and others at Volokh think the politics angle of the argument doesn’t wash because most of the people in the prosecution and sentencing were Republicans. American Phoenix very ably points out that not all politics is partisan. As I have stated before, the politics of a lynch mob have little to do with partisan politics. The “outrage” over this issue is pressure enough for someone to feel someone has to pay for this horrid crime that apparently never happened. Oddly enough, there are several posts at Volokh basically taunting those that feel outside influences had more to do with this than a real quest to get to the truth of the matter. Sure, they nailed Libby on a technicality, but what was the point of questioning him at all if they had ALREADY decided there was no crime committed? Fitzgerald was under pressure to nail someone. That, Orin, is political pressure. That, Orin, is the only reason Libby was ever prosecuted in the first place. Even if he HAD named everything he knew, the decision had already been made that no crime had been committed. So, what would have changed? The only thing this fiasco proves is Libby is an idiot and should have pled the Fifth. Would that have made everyone happier? Would that have gotten the Olbermann’s off his back? Would that have gotten the Dan Rather’s to shut up? <belushi>But NoooooOOOOooo!</belushi> We’d be hearing exactly the same rhetoric that we are now and Libby would have walked free. That’s the only thing that would have changed.
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vocalpatriot on 07.11.2007
You got it! Not only can they not prove that libby obstructed justice, they also proved the law was not broken in the first place. Armitage broke no laws mentioning plame..end of story. So why the continuation of the investigation? simply to figure out a way to hang libby since they had him on the gallows anyway, of course. The commutation disturbs me because it smacks of capitulation to the dems that, in my view, broke more than a few laws in this whole mess. This is nothing more than a basic and simple attack on a political party for the sole purpose of usurping executive powers. In other words, this is a coup. Treason and sedition are definately in play here. Oh, the dems are VERY proud of this one, indeed. Fitzgerald had it within his power to end it and chose to do the same thing Nifong did. He withheld the exonorating evidence. Disbarrement is the minimum he should face. He is complicit to the hilt! He would not have survived nuremburg being in this deep. I agree that libby should have pled the fifth. He should have learned from olie north. (wait, that rings a bell..haven’t we been down this road already?) I’m thinking that, since the investigation was not valid, that any information extracted, whether true or false becomes equally invalid and not admissible in court. A court, of course that had the ability to reject the case to begin with, or could have dismissed after realizing the inanity that had ensued.