Misterimpatient

The president of the free world(tm), struck again today when he commuted the sentence of Dick Cheney’s fall guy, “Scooter” Libby. This was the act of a president who has pardoned, commuted or reduced the sentence of fewer federal prisoners then any president before him. His reason for letting Libby off the jail time hook?

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison.”

Excessive? I actually invested some time in learning about our Federal Sentencing Guidelines. They are pretty extensive and a little anal if you ask me, but, never mind. Here is the relevant page, I think:

§2J1.2. Obstruction of Justice

(a) Base Offense Level: 14

(b) Specific Offense Characteristics

(1) If the offense involved causing or threatening to cause physical injury to a person, or property damage, in order to obstruct the administration of justice, increase by 8 levels.

(2) If the offense resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice, increase by 3 levels.

(3) If the offense (A) involved the destruction, alteration, or fabrication of a substantial number of records, documents, or tangible objects; (B) involved the selection of any essential or especially probative record, document, or tangible object, to destroy or alter; or (C) was otherwise extensive in scope, planning, or preparation, increase by 2 levels.

So looking at this, I figure Scooter (can I call him that?) was guilty of the basic charge of obstructing justice. In addition I thought (2) above came into play as well. This brought his offense level up to 14+3=17. Alright then. Now, we apply the 2003 Federal Sentencing Guidelines. As this is a first offense, we stick to the first column and find the recommended sentence is….24-30 months. What a surprise! I wonder why our president didn’t just reduce the sentence to 24 months?

Our president is an evil man surrounded by a range of people, not all of whom are evil(though some certainly are), but all of whom cannot be trusted in government. I know some people think he’s just stupid. Others feel he’s just an ideologue. I don’t think he’s stupid. Not anymore. An ideologue? I’m not convinced. I am convinced he is not motivated by what’s best for the majority of the people of the United States.

The sooner we see the backside of this man the better off the whole world will be.

How much you want to bet we don’t find him building decent housing for the poor when he moves on?

Later…

Filed by misterimpatient at 9:56 pm under Justice, sometimes