Of blackboards, chalk, and legacies -- The constitutional crisis continues

Guest post by J. Thomas Duffy

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce to your one of our newest contributors, J. Thomas Duffy. He has long been one of my good friends in the blogosphere, and it is a genuine pleasure to welcome him to The Reaction. He has written a few posts for us already, and hopefully there will be many more. The author of a great blog called The Garlic, he writes about many of the major issues of the day, often addressing the many abuses of the current administration, with a combination of gusto, outrage, and humour that sets his blog apart from so many others. (He has been a freelance comedy writer since 1975, with experience in journalism and radio.) Some of his link-filled Garlic posts will appear here, but make sure to check out The Garlic regularly (and see, for example, this recent post that includes the lullabye "Hush Little Libby").

-- MJWS

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Okay, so it's been a holiday week. I should stifle my impatience that Congress hasn't filed impeachment papers, that the call for a Citizen's Arrest hasn't gone down yet.

Everyone must be waiting for a clean news cycle to spring into action.

The Blackboard and Chalk Part

So much for the faulty memory.

It appears I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby remembered very clearly that he'd better hustle his ass off and pay the $250,000 fine related to his felon conviction -- and within 72-hours of being bailed out by The Commutation Guy -- before anyone gets the wiser and messes up his "Hush and Keep Quiet" deal.

And, as Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, Surprise!" -- we have a legal kerfuffle brewing thanks to The Commander Guy (just at the moment he was morphing into The Commutation Guy).

The presiding judge, His Honor Reggie Walton, has pointed out to the Bush Grindhouse, of said felon, Scooter Libby, that the statute doesn't accommodate probation if a convicted felon doesn't serve any part of his sentence.

The Scooter Man didn't serve any part of his 30-month sentence.

The Bush Grindhouse still insists that the commutation was legit and that Libby is not receiving any special treatment.

So, speculation is this will be settled in the following manner: Scooter Libby will stay after work, and write on a blackboard: "I WILL NOT LIE OR OBSTRUCT JUSTICE."

500 times.

There. Done. Punished.

The Legacy Part

Boy, the legacy-building is really tough these days, especially when you break the law, cloak your work in secrecy, and, otherwise, don't do anything positive.

And he can't, technically, claim getting elected president on the Legacy Ledger -- that was handed to him by the Supreme Court.

So you compensate, right?

You build a new Iraq Embassy that could probably house a few dozen Spruce Gooses (and, apparently, following Mr. Hughes' lead, use, how should we say, different materials?).

You keep sending in troops -- and even more mercanaries -- to a war that was long lost.

And there's the arm-twisting of whatever remains of his deluded supporters to kick in big-time for a presidential library.

The only mystery or suspense about what would be housed in a Bush Presidential Library, with his (or Cheney's) penchant for burying everything, is if there'll be a copy of My Pet Goat in it.

But thanks to Glenn Greenwald the other day, The Uniter/The Decider/The Commander Guy can peek at what awaits him, as he shallowly and embarrassingly cuts the ribbon (assuming they don't put that out on a No-Bid Contract) on his post-presidency whatever-you-call-it building:

The tragic collapse of America's standing in the world.

And there's this caveat:

And in what is perhaps the most tragic aspect of the Bush legacy, large numbers of people around the world, over the last six years, have abandoned their belief in U.S. democratic values -- the exact opposite result, literally, of our ostensible objective in everything we have done in the last six years.

Maybe we need to get Bush to write on a blackboard 500 times:

"I WILL NOT LIE, COOK INTEL, START PHONY WARS, ILLEGALLY WIRETAP, EXPOSE COVERT CIA AGENTS, FILL THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WITH CRONIES, ISSUE ANYMORE SIGNING STATEMENTS, OR IGNORE THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS."

Send chalk to:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

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Bonus Links:

-- Lewis Libby owes his freedom to our corrupt political elite
-- Late Nite FDL: News Flash! They Don’t Hate Us for Our Freedom.
-- Washington, Lincoln Most Popular Presidents: Nixon, Bush Least Popular
-- Arianna Huffington: Oh, the Hardship: It Takes Libby Nearly Three Days to Pay His Quarter Mil Fine
-- Frank Rich: When the Vice President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal