Good work, MJ. You really put that "right-wing extremist Sharansky" in his place! After all, while he was having a good time in the luxurious comfort of a solitary confinement cell in the GULAG prison of Chistopol in Siberia (USSR) because of his work for Soviet Jews and other dissidents, you were sacrificing yourself in the hell-hole of the United States, doing G-d knows what hard work, possibly doing without a second car, limited by your meager income to a mere 4000 calories a day nutritional intake, maybe having to make do with only a single color TV in your home, or whatever other horrors.

Whatever Sharansky went through in the Soviet Union does not justify his support for the American traitor and convicted felon Scooter Libby, whose complicity in Cheney's reign of terror is contemptible. MJ is totally justified in heaping scorn on Sharansky and the other Libby apologists.

If Bush pardon's the ACORN 4 he can pardon Libby.

Ron Byers

They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. A noxious weed indeed, this network of old cold warriors, right-wing supporters of Israel, and war profiteers of various sorts.

I know that in Israel alot of Soviet refugees believed that Sharansky was a KGB guy all along. Who knows. He certainly is a Stalinist type.

MJ, you simply have no tolerance for ANYONE who disagrees with you. All you do is curse out your political opponents, calling them all sorts of names. This is ironic considering your whining in your post about how "Right-wingers" were supposedly gloating at the death of David Halberstam. You patted yourself and your fellow "progressives" and "peace lovers" about how "tolerant" and loving you were as opposed to the "primitive, barbaric" conservatives, but YOU ACT EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. I am willing to guess that you hate Sharansky because he played a significant role in bringing down your Soviet "workers paradise", which if only they had only killed a few million less, would have evolved into the utopia all you "progressives" dream about.

Sharansky is no bigot, unless you consider all us Israeli "right-wingers" are that. He was elected to a high position in the Likud list, which is NOT a mere sectorial party like Lieberman's party, but one that is the MOST broadly based of any party. He decided on his own to leave the Knesset because he realized it was a waste of his time to be there. It simply galls you that Bush (whom I am no fan of) likes Sharansky's book, so therefore Sharansky must be a fiend, too.

So what's your point, Bar? You figure that Libby should get a pardon?

You agree with Sharansky's call that a man who acted as a cheap thug should get special treatment from the judicial system? Hmmm.

He only participated in, protected and promoted lies that killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed a country, looted priceless antiquities and world cultural heritage, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and permanently damaged american prestige and credibility.

He only participated in the outing of an undercover CIA agent and the compromise of her associates and her entire network, resulting in the execution or incarceration of an unknown number of people stupid enough to trust America ... all as a campaign of vengeance against this woman's husband. Revenge upon family members, how classy.

And then he only lied about it, consistently on multiple occasions over months, under oath, as part of a plot to obstruct and foil the investigation of an illegal vendetta drenched in blood.

If this is all shits and giggles, step right up and say so. I think it tells us all we need to know about your moral foundation. It certainly tells us about Sharansky's.

Maybe next time, you could think a little before shooting off your mouth?

The Matalin-Carville union is a good billboard for how this country is being run. When the opposition is in bed with the supposed political foe there is no end to the political mischief than can be done to the general welfare. At the national level two party politics has become a well-scripted dog and pony show.

The entire DC establishment has been crying for Libby.

You have to ask yourself why. Why aren't they crying for Duke Cunningham or any other convicted felon?

In the days leading up to the verdict WP editorial page published one Libby friendly editorial/oped after another and trashed the Wilsons.

They are now busy lobbying for a pardon.

Remember these are the same people who tried to overthrow a president for lying about his sex life. And yet they see nothing wrong with Libby lying in a criminal case about outing a CIA agent and obstructing the investigation.

If you had any doubts about the moral hypocricy of the Broderville crowd this should put an end to your doubts.

I consider all rightwingers bigots. Rightwingism is based on hate. Pure and simple. Note. I did not say conservatives. I said rightwingers.

What is Ron Paul?

For that matter, what was Milton Friedman? Milton Friedman called himself a liberal while the press called him a rightwinger.

Whatever they are, neither man was ever a bigot near as I can tell. In fact, I would say that Milton Friedman had some reason to call himself a liberal while many that do call themselves liberals aren't by any measure.

You can get into all sorts of trouble with statements like the above.

I understand quite well that you were speaking of Sharansky initially and have no trouble at all with the characterization of the man and his crowd of hatemongers from what little I have read.

Best, Terry

Foot soldier is a good metaphor, as I last heard it in context of the mob. Perjury where the topic of the lie is hard to prove was long also a familiar, valuable tactic in breaking the mob. And sure enough, the whole case was about the mob trying to punish someone (Wilson) who broke the code of "honor" by speaking out. That's how the mob running our country works.

True, in this case Rove and Armitrage (with an assist from Novak) were the hit men, and all we could convict was the consigliore, so I feel sorry for him. But pardon? Forget it.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Every so often we are offered a window into the thinking of some of the people who run this country. And those who provide the "intellectual" justifications for that thinking.

Fitzgerald's prosecution placed the investigation of the crime of exposing the identity of a CIA agent within the much larger criminal modality of fabricating a valid justification for invading another country. It is the obvious proximity between the two crimes that makes the obstruction of justice charge meaningful. If Libby's testimony put to rest any implication that the Vice President's office was up to no good while failing to sufficiently explain the outing of Plame, the judgment would have been different.

Critics of the judgment can and do take this element and declare Libby was convicted for an association to something beyond the indictment. But such "peripheral" matters quickly become central in any trial where the jury is asked to weigh the intentions of the accused.

Play with the big boys, you might get hurt.

Yes and no one died in Clinton's sexual escapade, but over 3500 young men and women have died in Iraq because of Bush's lies.

The righteous-right wing has no morals.

The complete list of Scooter letters is available here (373pg pdf file).

I slightly disagree with your characterization of a "heavy preponderance" of Neocon representation. Seems to me that by some distance the DC legal fraternity shows up in the largest numbers; the next biggest group would seem to be people, other than lawyers, who have worked with Libby.

Then there's the Neocon movement - Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Adelman, Woolsey etc - an assortment of people calling for Scooter to get the maximum punishment, and then your random others (eg Matalin/Carville, Wieseltier) including a number of ex-military brass (eg Myers).

The one name that surprised me however, was that of Jim Wolfensohn (pg 362 of the pdf). There was nothing especially startling in his letter, but anyone else a little puzzled that a popular ex-WB President and Iraq War critic would be sticking his neck out on behalf of Scooter?

The insight into people running this country was not the only enlightening issue. George Bush's presidency embodies a deep antipathy toward the rule of law, and apparently - and quite worryingly - it seems the DC legal establishment is getting infected with the same disease.

What was perhaps more interesting was the sense of self-righteousness that accompanied these pleas for leniency - from Peter Pace, to Francis Fukuyama, to Dick Cheney's official photographer, to Libby's assistant's fiance. Pretty much every letter in support of Scooter was along the lines of - Judge Walton, I know the guy, and because I know he is a good guy, works hard, and loves his family, you should be nice to him.

Fortunately, a Mr John E Rogers - a former deputy United States Attorney - foresaw this self-righteous nonsense. From his succinct letter on pg284 of the pdf:

"For a high government officer to do what was done in this case, to lie and lie and lie and continuously dissemble in order to a block a criminal investigation of a national security breech is an extremely serious matter, very akin to treason."

[...]

"I urge you to impose a sentence in this case appropriate to the crimes committed by this defendant, taking into consideration his betrayal of his high position and his country, his superior knowledge as a lawyer and former partner in a major law firm as to exactly what he was doing and his continuing unrepentant conduct. Whether he is kind to his dog, a nice guy, a good neighbor, or anything else is, of course, irrelevant to what he did and continues to do."

I guess this warmed Judge Walton's heart.

This is too dumb to be worthy of reply.

Yes, actually, it is dumb. Case in point:

how much of the WMD evidence which he refused to allow the United Nations to search for for years could have been shipped the two hundred miles from Baghdad to the sympathetic Ba'athist regime in Syria (As my 10 1/2 year old son pointed out at the time, DUH).

DUH, indeed.

This notion is so offensively stupid, its hard to know where to begin.

Let's start with the fact of the utter lack of any actual positive evidence for this little caper. Satellite's blanketing the region, the area under minute space based scrutiny sufficient to read the license plate numbers off a baby carriage. American overflights at will, much of the area of contact in a 'no fly zone' enforced by the United States, Israeli intelligence watching like hawks... And somehow Saddam pulls off a hat trick. Yeah, right.

Then there's the problem that Assad's Baathist regime was not actually friendly to Saddam's. In the Iran/Iraq War, Syria supported Iran. Go figure. It supported United Nations sanctions, cooperated with American intelligence, and was one of the few Arab countries not actually objecting to the invasion... even while on the Un Security Council.

And then, worst of all, there's the problem of 'footprint.' You don't just buy wmd's at wal-mart. No, you have to manufacture them, which means you need raw materials, precursors, processing equipment, labs, factories, buildings, infrastructure, budget allocations, scientists, technicians, truck drivers, machinists, electricians, security guards, all of which means paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, waste products, incinerators, disposal sites, contamination gear, doctors and medical staff. There's no way to just load up all of that stuff and onto trucks and send it off to Syria. Even if you did, you'd leave giant holes where buildings used to be, waste dumps used to be, warehouses used to be, missing areas in budgets, entire families from security guards and janitors up to top level scientists missing.

And let's not ignore the fact that tens of millions of dollars and years of work went into trying to find the stuff and finally proving it was never there.

And while we are at it, lets not forget that much of the evidence turned out to be outright lies, fabrications and exagerations.

The notion that it was all magically trucked off to Syria was popular for a few months among the stupider portions of the right wing. But only for a few months. For the most part, all but the congenital idiots clued in.

But here we are, years and years after the Syria notion has been so thoroughly exploded and discredited that its not even funny, years after its been established beyond any shadow of a doubt that there were no wmd's, years after its the debate is long gone and the lies are exposed...

Unahomer comes along and blithely suggests that it all got trucked to Syria. I'm sorry, the suggestion is either incredibly dumb or its provocative and dishonest. At the very least, it shows a core solid incomprehension of basic issues, or an utter lack of integrity.

And this is just the stupidest and most obnoxious assertion in a whole pile of stupid and obnoxious assertions.

An obvious example is how you try and compare Sakharov,

Apparently, Unahomer has no idea that Sharansky and Sakharov are two completely different people. Nuff said!

the mastermind criminal of Scooter Libby, a man who at worst is partially responsible for a petty political act of revenge

Actually, he is responsible for perjury, obstruction of justice, lying to a grand jury on multiple occasions and multiple counts. Libby was a lawyer, he has a law degree, he swore an oath as a lawyer to uphold the law. He swore an oath to a grand jury to tell the truth. He wiped his ass with his oaths.

Not petty political revenge. CRIMES.

that is difficult to actually believe would have had any genuine outcome on a war that was already a done deal.

The Wilson/Plame thing was 2002. The President was saying that it was not a done deal at the time. Was the President lying? The war didn't start until spring of 2003.

Note that this 'petty political revenge' was in support and furtherance of the agenda for war. It was part of making that war a 'done deal.'

That this 'petty political revenge' amounted to attacking not an opponent, but a family member of an opponent. Women and children are fair game?

That this 'petty political revenge' outed an NOC CIA Agent specializing in weapons of mass destruction programs in the middle east. It was followed up by outing her front company as a CIA front, anyone working for that company or connected to it as CIA agents, assets or fronts, and quite possibly the murder or imprisonment of decades worth of contacts and networks. But hey, its only the middle east, who cares about wmd's there?

Yes, I think the Iraq war and the subsequent war against Al Qaeda was and is WRONG.

Actually, the 'war' against Al Quaeda came first when Osama Bin Laden struck America on 9/11/2001. Remember that? I'm sure many people do. The war on Iraq came much later in March, 2003. I'm sorry, is it too hard to remember which came first? Get this man a fookin' calendar!

I believe both the President and the Congress were given false information on Iraq's WMD capabilities,

It was the President giving Congress and the American people false information. Remember those 16 little words that started this mess? Niger Uranium? Stuff that the US government knew was false when the President said it.

It goes on and on and on. Frankly, I'm sick of this crap.

You mean that 9/11 happened, and it took place before the Iraq war?

Nah, you got me. I can't back that up.

bar_kochba132 is a settler from LA.

Doubt if TJKING fits that profile.

Yes, actually, it is dumb.

No it actually isn't.

Was Stalin dumb? Pol Pot? Mao Tse Tung? Saddam Hussein - umm, well that's kind of a toughie.

The point is that these notorious monsters were swallowed up with hate. They were quite capable of reason but blinded by ambition, revenge, paranoia.

You can present a bushel basket of argument about the stupidity that prevents some from seeing the truth. It isn't lack of mental acuity but something else altogether.

Why does it matter?

Because then one can begin to see the futility in attempting intelligent discourse with those who are blinded by passion and prejudice.

Best, Terry

So you're arguing that Unahomer is not actually stupid and bone-ignorant, but that he's some sort of hatemongering, paranoid, devil worshipper conspiring with the elements to bring on the next holocaust.

The Unabomber that Unahomer would presumably emulate was driven by his perception of a moral cause little different from those that bomb abortion clinics and murder abortion doctors. Far from being a devil-worshipper, he was a True Believer in a Greater Good. Of course, I have neglected to mention obvious indications of personality disorder.

I would make a WAG the Unabomber would score quite well on an IQ test, not so hot on a psychological test of normal behavior.

I would guess UnaHomer is pretty much the same.

Best, Terry