WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case.
He also gets a $250,000 fine, this stemming from his obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case that led to the outing of covert agent Valerie Plame and her high level operation to uncover WMD programs in the Middle East -- you know, that unimportant case the righties don't think matters...
Related: The die-hards mount an "heroic" campaign to hide from the inconvenient facts... CBS, please to reiterate the obvious: Plame ... covert ... Libby ... guilty.
Let the frog marching begin...
Update: Apparently, the letters vouching for his integrity sought by the Libby faction before his sentencing didn't work. Libby got one from Henry Kissinger, but pointedly, not from the man he's going to prison to save from justice: Dick Cheney. Instead, Cheney's office issued the following warm(ish) statement:
"Scooter has dedicated much of his life to public service at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House. In each of these assignments he has served the nation tirelessly and with great distinction. I relied on him heavily in my capacity as Secretary of Defense and as Vice President. I have always considered him to be a man of the highest intellect, judgment and personal integrity -- a man fully committed to protecting the vital security interests of the United States and its citizens. Scooter is also a friend, and on a personal level Lynne and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy and its effect on his wife, Harriet, and their young children. The defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case. Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Hm.
Facing 2 and a half years, if I were Scooter, I would immediately begin cooperating with the special counsel and tell every goddamned thing I know about Cheney. The way of the Bushes is to let others swing, while they walk away (unless those "others" are Bush pals from Texas...) Dick Cheney was the target of the probe that Libby helped to thwart. He is culpable for feeding Libby the information he used to help destroy Valerie Plame's cover and then urging him to go ahead and blow it (hell, Dick even set up the meetings with reporters.) He pushed, or at best, allowed, Libby to lie to the FBI in order to save his own skin.
If Libby continues to protect the vice president, he is not just a felon, he's a damned fool.
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%>
Tell a friend
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Else
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'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
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'put the webmaster address here
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sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
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'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
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%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
