The Two Libby Theories

Matt lays them out:

The bottom line is that on one theory — Libby broke the law to spare his superiors embarrassing revelations of their lawbreaking, and is being pardoned by those same superiors to help perpetuate the cover-up of their embarrassing lawbreaking — Libby deserves to go to jail and Bush has seriously abused his power by pardoning Libby. On Nyhan’s alternative theory — Libby broke the law to spare his superiors embarrassing revelations of their embarrassing non-criminal conduct, and is being pardoned by those same superiors to help perpetuate the cover-up of their embarrassing non-criminal conduct — Libby also deserves to go to jail and Bush has also seriously abused his power by pardoning Libby.

Yeah, that’s about it. Still no clue here how Fitzgerald was "politically motivated."

Dissent of the Day

A reader writes:

Your pitiful excuse of a blog just got worse. While everyone else is writing about the jihad offensive in Britain and the consequences of jihadi doctors infiltrating the NHS, you are stuck in Libby heaven.

Fine. But once again, you fail to take the pulse of the American people, that is, the ones outside of the liberal cocoon on the east and west coasts. We don’t give a rat’s rear end about Scooter. The war and its mismanagement, is all the rage. If you want to hit Bush on that, that is legitimate. As is his total suicidal tendencies on immigration.

However, unleashing Buchanan, a Republican no more, as well as other disgruntled pathetic life forms on your blog almost hourly to condemn Libby is entirely humorous and pathetic.

You are no better, and in some ways, worse than any Daily Kos member, Democratic Underground, or even "legitimate" leftists on the scene like Eleanor Clift (Democratic operative masquerading as a journalist) or E.J. Dionne (ditto).

The only logical conclusion one can infer is that you suffer from Bush derangement syndrome. There is different causes for the mania. For some, it was Iraq.  For others, it is his simple existence, his religiosity, his Texan ways.  For others, it is the election of 2000.

For you, it started with gay marriage, and simply went on from there. You are like the drug addict that starts with Marijuana and then moves on to heroin, then cocaine, then crack. Each step of the way progresses downward toward oblivion. Alas, there goes Andrew Sullivan. Once, a brilliant Tory conservative and editor and academic. Now, a pathetic simple leftist sympathizer, a shrill voice of insanity in a room full of them, just another member of a group to be pandered to, and finally, a putrid excuse of a blog used as a runaway truck to hit anyone he doesn’t agree with politically.

Lesbians Not For Hillary

A reader writes:

I am a Lesbian, but I am not for Hillary. If you can get your head around what I’m about to say – you may actually help women and lesbians distinguish between who Hillary is and what Hillary is.

Everything Maya Angelou said about Hillary as a woman is true. Everything. Women get that what she has accomplished takes courage and strength. Women get how hard and complicated it is for women to "do it all." She is brilliant. She is strong.  etc. etc. The problem is not with the content of Maya Angelou’s statements. It is the crass exploitation of all that women have and do suffer for one’s own political gain. That’s the part that can and should make men and women throw up.

The End Is Nigh

We’ll be drawing down troops in Iraq next spring regardless of the posturing in Washington. The reason is quite simple, as Joe Klein explains:

There is another clock, not often mentioned, that sits in the Pentagon. It is the Broken Army clock, the service timeline for an exhausted force. Petraeus and his staff were deeply concerned when rumors of another tour extension, from the current 15 months for soldiers, spread in mid-June. "It would be a last resort," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters — but troop morale is so iffy that Petraeus quietly urged his commanders to "get the word out" to their soldiers that the extension rumors were false.

According to the Broken Army clock, troop levels will begin to wane in March 2008, no matter what Congress decides in September; the current 20 brigade combat teams will be reduced to 15 by August 2008. There is growing speculation in the military that Bush will try to pre-empt the Petraeus testimony by announcing a gradual drawdown from 20 to 15 combat brigades later this summer. "As if that isn’t going to happen anyway," a senior officer told me. "But it may give us some political breathing space" — that is, it may subvert the Democrats’ calls for a more rapid withdrawal — "if the President makes a big deal of announcing we’re drawing down."

The war is coming to an end. Beware the looming spin.

Hamas Wins The Week?

Gerard Baker worries about a p.r. coup:

Let’s never lose sight of a simple chilling fact that unites the suicidal maniacs in Britain and the sweet reasonable hostage-saviours in Gaza. Hamas was the big winner this week. That makes us all, whether we’re sipping beers in pavement cafes in Israel, boarding planes in Glasgow or out for a ladies’ night in the Haymarket, much, much less safe.