Justice For Some...

Well, the leader of the party of "personal responsibility" has commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence. It means Libby, who lied to investigators and a grand jury about his knowledge of a White House leak of the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, will not spend a day in jail.

That's right. The Federal government will send you to jail for using medical marijuana legally prescribed to you under state law in Oregon and California, but if you lie about your knowledge of leaking classified information about an undercover CIA operative -- you know, one of the folks on the front line of the so-called "war on terror" -- you won't spend a day in jail. Awesome.

That's justice in the United States of America in 2007 under the Bush regime.

Of course, the White House is trying to spin how the commutation doesn't remove the conviction from Libby's record like a full pardon would, affecting his career and future, and how Libby will still have to pay a $250,000 fine.

But, of course, that's bullshit. For one thing, the conviction isn't going to stop Libby from getting top dollar gigs as a political consultant for conservative causes, as a TV pundit, or on the lecture circuit. He'll make more doing one speech than you or I make in a year. He'll make enough scratch to pay that fine in a week, if he even ends up paying it at all. After all, all those big dollar conservative supporters will probably help their friend Scooter out, and even if they don't, the smart money is on Bush totally pardoning Scooter after the '08 election, when it won't be as politically dangerous.

No, Libby isn't going to pay a damned cent or spend a day in jail for helping to cover up a crime that strikes at the very heart of the ability of the US to defend itself and prevent future mistakes along the line of the cluster fuck in Iraq. And, of course, Karl Rove, who almost certainly was the one who decided to leak Plame's identity, won't ever step into a courtroom to answer for acts that, even under a charitable interpretation, could easily be considered treason.

When the Republicans say that they are for "personal responsibility," remember that what they mean is personal responsibility for you and me, and all the other small fries out there who don't have multimillion dollar bank accounts and tax shelters in the Caymans. But not them. Not Bush, or Cheney, or Rove, or Gonzales, or DeLay, or Rumsfeld, or Rice, or any of the other people who have fucked up our country and then blamed their failures on everyone else. Not them. Not Scooter Libby.

Just you. And me.