Pardon My Chutzpah
Lest the Dems get too swept away by righteous indignation over the Libby commutation, Tony Snow issued this not-so-polite reminder:
I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it.
This being this:
The former president's [Clinton] most notorious pardon was of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose former wife, Denise, was a Democratic Party fundraiser and patron of the Clinton presidential library.
Clinton's pardon of Rich may not rise to the level of virtual hush money, as Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence does, but it comes close in offensiveness. Again, lest we forget, this is what Time had to say at the time:
Thursday, the controversy took another step forward — no, we're not at impeachment yet, but it's been suggested — when federal prosecutors in New York officially opened a criminal investigation into whether Rich did indeed buy his pardon with his ex-wife Denise's pointed largesse to the First Couple and the Democratic party.
That's the problem with allowing partisanship to trump your sense of right and wrong — sometimes an act you once defended comes back to bite you in the ass.
Comments
While the Rich pardon is indefensible (and I did not defend it then and will not defend it now), let us remember that Rich had not obstructed justice to save Clinton (or Al Gore) from prosecution as Libby did for Cheney (and possibly Bush.) Wingers have been comparing the Libby commutation and the Rich pardon in order to muddy the waters on what it was Bush actually did here - he became an accessory to obstruction of justice. Say what you will about Clinton (and believe me, I think he's a sleazeball and do not like him or her), but he was not an accessory to obstruction in that pardon.
Nonetheless, I am w/ conservative blogger Cunning Realist on an important point here: the president's unlimited power to pardon and commute sentences must be changed. A president should not be able to have a flunky take the fall for somebody more powerful in the administration and then be able to pardon that person later so that no jail time is ever served. A president also should not be able to pay off political allies on the way out the door either.
BTW, the better Clinton/Bush pardon analogy would be Clinton's pardon of Susan McDougal. She may have taken the fall for the Clintons, but unlike Libby, she actually did a year in jail before she was pardoned by Clinton. Scooter did no time and paid off his fine in three days.
Posted by: reality-based educator | July 7, 2007 09:42 AM
rbe, I don't disagree with any of that. Rich's pardon was corruption to a lesser degree, as I indicated in the post. But it still smacks of a quid pro quo corruption.
The point I tried to make is that I heard many Dems at the time defending the Rich pardon, or at least they remained very quiet about it. That kind of partisanship is one of the reasons Congress has about a 13% approval rating.
Great point about McDougal. But frankly, that doesn't make the Clintons any less the hypocrites.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 7, 2007 10:00 AM