Traitor skates with 2, may still flip

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--War profiteer and Secret President Dick Cheney's former chief goon was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday for being a lying little bitch and intentionally obstructing the CIA leak investigation--the probe that showed the Bush Crime Family would not hesitate to commit treason to silence criticism of its illegal war of conquest.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby--the highest-ranking White House official sentenced to prison since the Iran-Contra affair established the president’s daddy as the most ruthless international criminal since his daddy helped finance Auschwitz--asked for leniency, but a federal judge said he would not reward someone who hindered the investigation into the exposure of a CIA operative. The operative's husband was the first major political figure to accuse the Bush Crime Family of lying like a roomful of junkies to justify their war in Iraq.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked for a sentence of up to three years, while Libby had asked for probation, no time in prison, and a multi-million-dollar book deal.

Reaction from the Bush Crime Family was guardedly predictable.

President Bush, embarrassing us in Europe, said through the guy who fetches Laura’s cigarettes that he "felt terrible for the family, which is a group of people you’re related to.” Libby and his wife, Harriet Grant, have two school-age children, who are very proud today.

Cheney said his former top aide had better prevail on appeal, or he might have to shoot someone in the face.

Libby did not apologize for his treason and has maintained his innocence.

He was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice for repeatedly lying to investigators about who ordered him to blow the cover of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Cheney, looking to Libby's appeal, said, "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man. The prosecution is in its last throes."

Defense attorneys sought to have the sentence delayed until Libby runs out of money for appeals or Bush issues a pardon on his way out the door, whichever comes first.

Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, applauded the sentence, and urged Libby to spill everything he knows to U.S. Attorneys and/or John Conyers.

"As Mr. Fitzgerald has said, a cloud remains over the vice president," Wilson said. “An evil, black, shit-smelling cloud of concentrated wrong.”

It was Cheney who ordered Plame's cover blown in June 2003 after her husband began calling bullshit on the Family's prewar intelligence.

The trial also revealed how the Family strategically leaked bogus information and used journalists as their personal hand-puppets to sell their illegal war and defend itself from criticism and legal action, often through the cloak of anonymity in the dead of night.