Mr. Bill and Hill's Views of Justice and Pardons

There a real firestorm going on over President Bush's commutation of ex-Cheney aide Scooter Libby's sentence...but it amazed me to see some of it coming from the Clintons, of all people.

Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."

Hillary Clinton, of course is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination and looking to gin up the base. She said the Libby decision "was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

You would have thought they would have had the common sense to keep their mouths shut.

It's entertaining to peruse this official USDOJ list of pardons granted by President Clinton, especially the ones granted near the end of his 2nd term. The list for January 2001 shows that the crimes include:

• Wire fraud, mail fraud, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, criminal forfeiture, income tax evasion, and trading with Iran in violation of trade embargo ( Marc Rich, husband of Clinton donor Dianne Rich)

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States by filing a false document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Warren Stannard Wood)

• A number of convictions for sale and distribution of narcotics, including crack (Kevin Arthur Williams,Marlena Francisca Stewart-Rollins,Vernon Raymond Obermeier, Charles Wilfred Morgan, III, Hildebrando Lopez, Roger Clinton, and a host of others)

• Converting ( illegally selling) property mortgaged or pledged to a farm credit agency, and converting public money to personal use (Jimmie Lee Wilson)

• Convictions for Bank embezzlement (Kristine Margo Beck,Mary Theresa Fajer,George William Lindgren and many others)

Other crimes included that rated a Clinton pardon include military desertion, racketeering, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, mail fraud,weapons offenses, counterfeiting, and a number of other felony offenses. You have to read the list and then try to remember or do some searches to find out whom some of these people were connected to for you to get a full sense of how corrupt the Clinton White House really was and the sort of people they were in bed with....in some cases, literally.

And of course, there were `political' pardons, like those for Susan McDougal, Daniel Rostenkowski, Henry Cisneros, Webb Hubbel and a number of smaller players in and out of the various scandals of the Clinton years.

Not to toss any roses at the current president, but all of these pale in comparison to anything Scooter Libby might have done.

People who live in glass houses...