On Mar 21, 2007, at 5:22 PM, Ed Leafe wrote: > Let me get this straight: Bush's current and former staff members > can testify before Congress, but there can't be any sort of record > kept, and the testimony can't be under oath? > > Let's assume for a minute that there is no public record of their > testimony; that it's all done in a confidential, sealed manner. Why > not under oath? I can think of one and only one difference that would > make: they couldn't be prosecuted for lying.
Don't forget another possibly more charitable rationale: they can't be put in prison for not remembering some detail. This is what happened to Scooter Libby. No underlying crime (actually, this was known by the prosecutor from the very beginning, along with the identity of the actual 'leaker', who was by no means part of the 'cabal' that the Left was hoping to nail, just known not to the public which was allowed to believe and expect that it was Rove and build up that non-scandal for something like 2 years). In the end it was just a he-said/he-said disagreement over some detail with a news reporter. But perjury is perjury I guess, even if the jurors openly said they didn't think he committed a crime but felt obligated to nail SOMEBODY. Unless of course it's is about sex and the offender is a democrat. Anyway... Now the man is going to prison. Meanwhile, Sandy Burglar -- thief and destroyer of top-secret material evidence in the biggest investigation in the history of the Republic -- roams free. (BTW I heard on the news some schmuck who stole NON top-secret documents about the Civil War from the archives and sold them on eBay is going to prison. Is this the "two America's" that the ambulance chaser moans about or what?) > > Can someone fill me in on why they would insist on this? Does it > seem to anyone else that Bush is demanding permission for these > people to lie without consequence? The answer is so obvious I'm embarrassed to have to fill you in on it. Because this is nothing more than a political witch hunt. If the WH had anything to hide they would not have instantly divulged thousands of pages of emails and facts related to the firings (some of which reveal the---brace yourself!---political nature of the jobs of--- brace yourself again!---political appointees!) and offered to give the Congress direct access to his personal advisors in any fashion, per the executive privilege that any president enjoys. But he did offer them up on the condition they would not be putting themselves in legal jeopardy, which is the only reason the Democrats want them under oath: with the hopes to find some way to put them in legal jeopardy. Don't even pretend this isn't entirely political! The President understands this, and is naturally concerned about the blood-sport nature of the way these kinds of tempest-in-a-teapot scandals evolve. As alluded to above, a different non-scandal over a non-crime already cost him one good friend, whose life is ruined now. Let's be honest about this too. The president can wake up with a bug up his arse and fire anybody, including one or all of the attorneys he appointed for any reason whatsoever. They do not have some entitlement to the job; they serve at his pleasure. It is inherently political in that sense. He can do the same thing to Rove, or Gonzales or anyone in his Cabinet. Which is why nobody really raised a stink about the 93 attorneys general that Janet Reno summarily fired when Clinton came to power. Like that wasn't political! It's only an issue now because the Democrats are raising such hay over these 8 firings, gearing up for 2008. While somewhat unprecedented (I'm talking about Clinton's firing of nearly ALL the attorneys), it was entirely in their purview to do it. Give me a break. This whole thing is beyond absurd. The only reason the Democrats want this to happen is to use it as a political football in the Presidential race and hopefully to nab Rove or anybody they can along the way and send them off with Scooter Libby. These people thrive on the political circus they're going to such pains to create. Going along with the demand given the obvious intent would be, well, dumb. And Bush is many things. Inarticulate off-the-cuff, stubborn at times, whatever. But dumb isn't one of them. He knows they can easily over play their hand (and are psychologically predisposed to do so) and he knows the game of rope-a-dope they're playing can easily backfire. So why give them what everything they want, instead of all they really need to see the clearly political and clearly legal nature of the process---like they don't know how it works or something? But the tragedy is that we are so taking our eye of the real ball, and this circus will do great harm to our country, for no good reason at all. Just like that ridiculous Plame affair, which, once the facts were out, was boiled down to a disagreement over who (legally) told whom what (legally) when. Pure nonsense, all of it. It's disgusting. - Bob > > -- Ed Leafe > -- http://leafe.com > -- http://dabodev.com > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
