THE DAILY BLADE: Scooter Libby Saga, Marked By Ironic Twists Of Fate, Ends On Note Of Hypocrisy
In drama – and in real life as well - players and events thrown together in improbable circumstances cause surprising or unanticipated outcomes ("situational irony"). When the drama is played out in Washington, D.C., there is always a Greek chorus of hypocrites who loudly criticize the players for infractions of which they, too, are guilty.
With this in mind, isn’t it ironic that:
† During the course of an investigation to determine who identified Valerie Plame as a CIA employee, Richard Armitage - who admitted being the leaker - has not been indicted or prosecuted?
† Rather than shutting down the investigation after the leaker’s identity was known, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald continued taking depositions and hauling people before grand juries to entrap them into making misstatements for which they could be indicted?
† Scooter Libby - who was not the leaker - was the only person prosecuted as a result of an investigation to find the leaker?
† Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in a trial during which no witness corroborated the story of another witness – meaning that their versions of events were no more or less credible than Libby’s?
† President Bush specifically selected Reggie B. Walton to fill a vacancy on the federal bench in 2001 because of his tough-on-crime reputation and track record of imposing stiff sentences?
† The Bush administration recently announced a tough new crime bill that empowers judges to impose longer - but not shorter - sentences, and the president commuted Libby’s sentence because he felt it was excessively harsh?
† Libby, who was Marc Rich’s lawyer when he was seeking a pardon from then-president Bill Clinton, would need a similar intervention by the executive branch himself just a few years later?
And isn’t it hypocritical that:
† Dems who vociferously argued that public humiliation was punishment enough for Clinton’s perjury, are now equally vociferous in their demands that Libby get jail time?
† In what Bush spokesperson Tony Snow called a gigantic case of chutzpah, Hillary Clinton denounced the commutation because it "sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice," despite the 140 pardons and 36 commutations her husband granted during his last hours in the Oval office having included pardons for his half brother, Roger, who was convicted of dealing cocaine and the aforementioned Rich, whose ex-wife donated gobs of dough to erect the Clinton Library?
† Hillary’s brother, Hugh Rodham, made a small fortune for successfully procuring a presidential pardon for a businessman under suspicion of money laundering and a commutation of the sentence of a convicted drug trafficker?
The Stiletto is pleased that the commutation keeps Libby out of prison, and hopes he will press on with his appeal to clear his name and overturn penalties to which he is still subject. You’ll recall that Clinton pardoned Fife Symington, after the former AZ governor had already successfully appealed his conviction on bank fraud charges – so a presidential pardon down the road would not be pointless.
The Prius Rocks (No, Really)
Ann Coulter has been known to heap scorn on the Prius – not to mention those who drive Toyota’s popular hybrid car. But that doesn’t seem to faze Prius fans, according to The New York Times, which posits that "the Prius has become, in a sense, the four-wheel equivalent of those popular rubber ‘issue bracelets’ in yellow and other colors - it shows the world that its owner cares."
The first wave of Prius owners were geeks who coveted the car’s innovative technology; others wanted to do their bit to reduce our country’s foreign oil dependence or to combat global warming; and with the stratospheric price of gasoline, there are those who love not having to fill up every couple of days - the car is rated at an estimated 48 miles a gallon in stop-and-go city driving (the hybrid battery charges every time you brake) and 45 on the highway. Of course The Stiletto can’t discount the possibility that some shallow sorts bought a Prius because Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Joel, Bill Maher and other celebrities drive one.
However, though Prius owners all-too-often come off as smug or pious, they share a guilty secret that the uninitiated would never guess. Because the car has a gasoline/electric hybrid powertrain, it has the acceleration and power of a car with a much larger gasoline-burning engine.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the Prius kicks butt. So Ann, your eyes won’t be offended by the "ugliness" of the car for more than a couple of seconds as it rockets past whatever jalopy you’re driving – even from a dead stop.
Al Gore III (you-know-who’s son) is one Prius driver who can attest to the car’s zippiness – as soon as the drugs wear off, that is. The 24-year old was pulled over by sheriff's deputies for driving his hybrid at about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway in the vicinity of Laguna Niguel, CA. When the officers smelled pot in the Prius, they "searched the car and found less than an ounce of marijuana, along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall" – and Gore allegedly does not have a prescription for any of those medications, Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino tells The Associated Press. The scion of the Gore family was taken to the men's central jail in Santa Ana on $20,000 bail.
[Editorial Note: At the risk of self-incrimination, The Stiletto confesses that she once took a Prius out on the section of the Loop 101 that cuts through Scottsdale (known to locals as "the Autobahn" – at least, until speed enforcement cameras were installed) and got it up to 105 mph. Nothing shook, nothing rattled and the engine did not strain at all. As the car was not equipped with speed-rated tires, The Stiletto thought it prudent not to satisfy her curiosity as to just how fast a Prius can go. By the way, none of the other vehicles sharing the road with The Stiletto at the time were going less than 85 mph, and their drivers were no doubt surprised to see a Prius holding its own – and then some!]
"Sicko II: The Sequel"
According to the BBC, eight people arrested in connection with failed car bombings in Glasgow and London are linked to the National Health Service (NHS), and seven of them are believed to be doctors or medical students; one used to be a lab tech.
Which is how a medical syringe came to be used as part of the firing mechanism (ABC News reports that the car bomb outside the front door of London’s Tiger Tiger nightclub failed because the syringe caused a malfunction).
Why are Muslim doctors flocking to England to work in the NHS? The Daily Telegraph (London) explains:
[C]areers in medicine have become so popular in rich Middle East countries, where universal health care is a priority, that there are no longer enough jobs to go round.
It is why thousands of doctors, trained in the Middle East, have migrated to Britain and Europe, where well-paid work is easy to find.
It is now suspected that some may have come to Britain not just to save lives but to take them too. What is disturbing the police is that the NHS may have provided the network they needed to recruit to their cause.
But the plot thickens, reports the following day’s edition of The Telegraph:
A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an extremist internet chat site.
Police found details of the discussions on a site run by one of a three-strong "cyber-terrorist" gang. …
One message read: "We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America. …
Investigators have found no link between the … chat room and the group of doctors and medics currently in custody over attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
However, sources said it was "definitely spooky" that the use of doctors for terrorist purposes was being discussed in jihadi terrorist circles up to three years ago. …
The three "cyber terrorists" - a British national and two who had been given the right to live in Britain - are facing lengthy jail sentences after admitting using the internet to spread al-Qa'eda propaganda inciting Muslims to a violent holy war and to murder non-believers.
They had close links with al-Qa'eda in Iraq and believed they had to fight jihad against a global conspiracy by kuffars, or non-believers, to wipe out Islam.
Why are educated Muslims – including doctors - willing jihadis? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explains (TimesSelect subscription required):
Islam’s self-identity is that it is the most perfect and complete expression of God’s monotheistic message, and the Koran is God’s last and most perfect word. To put it another way, young Muslims are raised on the view that Islam is God 3.0. Christianity is God 2.0. Judaism is God 1.0. And Hinduism and all others are God 0.0.
One of the factors driving Muslim males, particularly educated ones, into these acts of extreme, expressive violence is that while they were taught that they have the most perfect and complete operating system, every day they’re confronted with the reality that people living by God 2.0., God 1.0 and God 0.0 are generally living much more prosperously, powerfully and democratically than those living under Islam. This creates a real dissonance and humiliation. How could this be? Who did this to us? The Crusaders! The Jews! The West! It can never be something that they failed to learn, adapt to or build. This humiliation produces a lashing out. …
Muslims have got to understand that a death cult has taken root in the bosom of their religion, feeding off it like a cancerous tumor.
This cancer is erasing basic norms of civilization. In Iraq, we’ve seen suicide bombers blow up funerals and schools. In England, seven out of the eight people detained in the latest plot are Muslim doctors or medical students. Doctors plotting mass murder? Could that be? If Muslim leaders don’t remove this cancer — and only they can — it will spread, tainting innocent Muslims and poisoning their relations with each other and the world.
Well before the London and Glasgow plots were set into motion, The Times of London reports that a British cleric was given advanced warning in the form of a cryptic message delivered by an al-Qaeda leader he met at a conference about religious reconciliation in Amman, Jordan: "[T]he people who cure you will kill you."
Say what you will about the American healthcare system, Michael Moore – but at least when our doctors kill you it’s malpractice, not terrorism.
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