Failure of Fabricated Reasons...

That's the way a machine works, relentless and preordained, with no room for the personal transcendence that conscience gives. It was all so mechanical, so unthinking, so political. That's why on the night of Karla Faye's killing, my anger at George W. Bush turned to outrage when Larry King aired Bush's press statement and I heard the way Bush invoked God to bless his denial of clemency.

Death in Texas

The layer upon layer of hypocrisy in the Scooter commutation is nothing short of breathtaking.  George “Lethal Injection” Bush who never granted a single plea for clemency before suddenly feels the gentle call of mercy.  He argues for the unfairness of the verdict by citing rationale that his own justice department has been trying to outlaw from judicial proceedings.  Pundits and editors who screeched for Clinton’s head on a pike over his single false utterance for which he was never indicted cry crocodile tears for the suffering of poor Libby being convicted on multiple counts of felony obstruction.  Lawmakers who lauded the professionalism of Ken Starr bellow with rage over the partisanship of the Republican-appointed prosecutor and judge, and the jury duly approved by Libby’s defense attorneys.

But all of this is beside the point.  Dizzying heights of hypocrisy are entirely expected when people lie about their motivations.  The reasons conservatives give for any decision or belief are nothing more than post-facto rationalizations which bear no relationship to their actual thinking.  When they lie about what they believe they have to cover up that lie with a bigger lie, and that with a yet bigger lie until they very quickly contradict themselves.  But that doesn’t matter, for to them and their supporters getting the result they want is all that matters; having a plausible explanation for it is mostly an afterthought.

More important than trying to point out contradictions in Republican spin is laying bare the true motivations behind their acts.  These have to be papered over with rhetoric because at heart they are brutally tribal, ruthlessly selfish and uncompromisingly uncompassionate.  Bush didn’t nix Libby’s jail time out of personal feelings for his family.  This was an act of desperate self-preservation, intended both to silence Libby and to serve as an example to others who might yet testify.  The president used the power of his office to aid and support Libby’s crimes, to protect himself by further blocking legal scrutiny.  And to the extent that there was any conversation between Libby or his lawyers and the president or any in his administration about getting Libby out of jail before or during the trial, this was a criminal conspiracy.

To most people reasons really do matter; that’s why the conservative movement spends so much time and money figuring out how to explain away what they want to do anyway.  But it is this quasi-criminal act more than most which has left the president and his horrible, horrible hangers on vulnerable to the reality-based community.  Third graders can recognize a conflict of interest when they see one, and that is what we have here.  It’s not a question of whether the president had the right to do this, but whether it was right for him to do this.  On that question, the facts speak louder than spin.

- jack*

Comments

[Zenji]

hear, hear. Well said.