All Those Lies
Blogger Atrois often merely states "What Digby Said" with a link to the appropriate post. "What she said" is also often how I feel about Deborah Leavy's op-ed pieces in the Philadelphia Daily News.
In her latest commentary, DO THE CRIME, DO THE TIME, writing about the hue & cry for a pardon of Libby by the right, Leavy does it again:
But I don't think the judge is sending Libby to prison for payback. Judge Walton is known as a tough sentencer, and since Libby did the crime he should do the time.
The best reason for Libby to sit in prison is not so that he will contemplate what he did and repent, as the Quakers envisioned when they first established penitentiaries.
Libby must go to prison so that he and other government officials who lie will realize that they risk real consequence for their actions. The threat of serving time in prison might deter at least some from lying.
There have been so many Bush administration lies it's hard to count. The most significant, surely, was linking Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11, and asserting that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, lies used to justify a war that the truth would not support. In fact, it was just such a lie that Libby lied to cover up.
Justice Department officials lied about why they fired several U.S. attorneys, and why they hired others who were "loyal Bushies."
Bush lied about wiretapping American citizens without warrants.
He lied when he said, "We do not torture."
He lied in saying his tax cuts were primarily for the middle class, when it was the very rich who reaped most of the benefits.
He lied about the cost of the prescription drug plan, and the Medicare analyst who knew otherwise was threatened with firing if he revealed the truth.
He said Democratic leaders "think the best way to protect the American people is - wait until we're attacked again." That couldn't be further from the truth.
GOOGLE "Bush lies" and you'll get almost nine million hits. There's even a website, BushLies.net.
Bush and his aides have continually lied to Congress and to the American people. In their arrogance, they disdain those of us "in the reality-based world," as a top aide to Bush called it, bragging, "We create our own reality."
All those lies, and no one has been held accountable. Libby is part of that "reality," that culture of lying, and he was convicted of lying under oath. I wish we could punish all the others, too, but it is fair to use Libby as an example.
If Bush pardons Libby, the green light to lie stays on.
Enough lies.
If you have sworn to uphold the Constitution, tell the truth. Tell the truth, or you could go to prison.
As Judge Walton said when he sentenced Libby, "Government officials must realize if they're going to step over the line . . . there are consequences."
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