Friday, July 20, 2007

Boned again

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--A Bush Crime Family-owned judge Thursday dismissed former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit demanding financial redress from the Bush Family goons who leaked her agency identity.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Actual President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003, which they are on record as having done. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, a whore, dismissed the case on "jurisdictional grounds" and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House ratfucker Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis "Shitbag" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Plame's lawyers said from the beginning the suit would be a difficult case to make in an incipient fascist dictatorship like 21st Century America.

Plame's cover was blown in a syndicated newspaper column in 2003, shortly after Wilson told the truth about the Family's march to war in Iraq.

Armitage and Rove were the sources for that article, and they still have security clearance because it isn't treason if Republicans do it. Nobody was charged with leaking because Libby lied to the FBI and obstructed the investigation, for which he was duly convicted. Bush commuted Libby's prison term before he served any time, to keep him from talking.

"This just dragged on the character assassination that had gone on for years," said Alex Bourelly, one of Libby's lawyers, a whore. "To have the case dismissed is a big relief."

Plame and Wilson pledged to appeal.

"This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me." Wilson said in a statement. "We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation."

Though Bates said the case raised "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials," he said there was no legal basis for the suit because he is a whore.

Bates also sided with administration officials who said they were acting within their job duties as henchmen for our demented child-king and his cyborg puppet-master. Plame had argued that what they did was illegal and outside the scope of their government jobs, being treason and all.

"The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," Bates wrote, using "alleged" because the more accurate "proven" would have angered his idiot liege-lord.

"But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by outing secret agents to members of the press, is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials," Bates said.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, a whore, said Rove was pleased to have the case behind him.

"The risk of being liable for personal damages is not something anybody I know takes seriously," Luskin said.

Bates, who spent the 90s hassling President Clinton over the stinking huge pile of nothing that was Whitewater, was given this gig in 2001. He previously distinguished himself as the whore who ruled that Dick Cheney didn't have to say who was on his "Energy Task Force."

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The enemy of my friend's enemy is...

BAGHDAD (LA Times)--Although Bush Crime Family mouthpieces have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from the Family's employers in Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is an intelligent man who loves his children. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has told the truth about the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy sent by close friends of its Commander-In-Chief.

The problem casts a spotlight on the incestuous business relationships between the nasty old oil-rich bastards who run the Middle East and the nasty old oil-rich bastards who run the U.S.

In the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslim fighters for the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedin battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan because it was a good way of shipping potential troublemakers out of the country. At the time, Saudi intelligence cultivated another man helping the Afghan fighters, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda who would one day provide the Bush Family with everything it ever wanted by masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has long been the primary source of the money and manpower for Al Qaeda: 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were Saudi. The other four were not from Iraq.

The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youths are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it can to stop the bloodshed short of creating some sort of economic infrastructure at home.

"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are, though it has always been the U.S. State Department in the past. We aren't getting any formal information from the hated Iranian Shi'ite proxy government who are laughably pretending to run Iraq," said General Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry.

"If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help," he said, without specifying whom.

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to appear to seek to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has pretended to fight a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since September 11, much as the U.S. has pretended to fight a War on Terror™.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was lying. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, try?"

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home by demanding that the House of Saud actually govern rather than simply ruling.

Iraqi Shi'ite lawmaker Sami Askari, an advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, accused Saudi officials of a deliberate policy to sow chaos in Baghdad, and he will never be invited to Crawford.

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said. "Especially with Dick Cheney flying over there to brief them whenever they demand it."

Friday, July 13, 2007

Surge protector

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AFP)--President George W. Bush on Friday fought to buy time for his ongoing rape of Iraq, as his chief spokesweasel grudgingly admitted that the war-torn country's puppet lawmakers would take an August vacation, just like Bush always does.

"You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August," White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow said in the air-conditioned pressroom. "My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but you know, they don't really do much anyway."

"I'm not in a position, at this point, to try to gainsay what the Iraqis are doing," he added, noting that the U.S. Congress will take a similar recess from August 6 to September 4, during which time they will travel to their home offices to catch up on their pro-impeachment mail.

In a fresh blow to Bush's dream of an endless war, two of his Republican party's elder statesman, Senators Richard Lugar and John Warner, urged him to start pulling U.S. troops out of the sectarian clusterfuck we created there by the end of the year.

They released their plan one day after Bush rejected any changes to his endless war plan until two months from now, when the most recent U.S. Iraq commander, General David Petraeus, gives a glowing report on the troop surge strategy or starts looking for another job.

The legislation, which appeared designed to unite those Republicans who hope to be re-elected with Democrats trying to end the war, calls for a new plan to be delivered to Congress by October 16.

The move came one day after the House of Representatives voted to withdraw most U.S. combat troops by April and as Bush held a videoconference with top military aides in Baghdad and Washington to hammer home his point that the war can, and must, continue at least until he leaves office.

"What happens in Iraq matters to the United States of America. A violent, chaotic Iraq is crucial to my financial security," Bush said as he heaped praise on U.S. contractors making hundreds of millions of dollars from failing to provide basic services in the strife-torn country.

While he spoke, the aides around the conference table at the White House, including part-time Defense Secretary Robert Gates and soon-to-be-ex-Joint Chiefs chairman General Peter Pace, sat with dazed expressions from trying to match the president drink-for-drink at lunch.

Bush--who has vowed to veto any legislation mandating what he calls a "hasty troop withdrawal" and everyone else calls "ending this disastrous and illegal occupation"--also underlined that "there's still a lot of money to be made."

The first report, made public Thursday, showed the Iraqi government making "satisfactory" progress on eight of 18 political and security benchmarks set by Congress, and scoring a "piss-poor" or "non-existent" rating on the rest, with barely 60 days before the next assessment is ignored.

"I grant you it's not a lot of time," said White House spokesmodel Dana Perino. "The president is saying, 'Let's give it a little bit more time to work,'" she added, and smugly noted that the Democrats lack the two-thirds majority to override an inevitable Bush veto.

She also emphasized that craven, delusional House Republicans had, with few exceptions, sided with the White House in Thursday's vote--even as increasing numbers of the party's heavyweights in the Senate have broken with Bush's plan upon realizing it's a career-killer.

But there was no mistaking the panicked urgency of Bush's public relations push, as the normally invisible Gates was to hold a news conference, while U.S. Secretary of State and Back-up First Lady Condoleezza Rice took to the airwaves to defend her man's troop increase despite the report.

And the dumb-as-mud president himself summoned a phalanx of conservative chickenhawk pundits for a group handjob at the White House on why his approach deserves more time.

Bush's strategy of indefinitely deploying 30,000 more troops in Iraq is "a work in progress," whined Rice, who appeared on all major U.S. television networks in another desperate attempt to downplay her boyfriend's profound failure as a leader and as a man.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Skeletor has gas

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday that his recently improved digestion means the threat to the United States from al Qaeda has not returned to levels ignored by the Bush Crime Family just before the September 11 attacks nearly six years ago.

Chertoff played down media reports inspired by his ongoing flagrant electioneering on behalf of the GOP, that the militant network was now as great a threat to U.S. soil as in the months before the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, when the president was enjoying a marathon drunken binge on his fake Texas ranch.

"I wouldn't put it at that level," he told ABC's Good Morning America. "I do think we've accomplished an awful lot in dismantling their activities overseas and in building our own defenses, especially considering the president's loyalty to the House of Saud, where most of their funding comes from. But I do think the level of intent on the part of the enemy remains very high, which results in some intestinal discomfort for me, particularly when so many members of this administration are under investigation in high-profile scandals."

The Washington Post
reported the militant network has significantly rebuilt itself and established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan, where they are under the protection of a nuclear-armed military dictator who claims to be our ally. It cited a new intelligence report to be misunderstood and lied about by Chertoff and other top officials at a White House meeting later Thursday.

Top intelligence analysts also told Congress on Wednesday that al Qaeda's training activities, funding and communications have increased as the militant network has settled into new bases in remote areas of Pakistan, and that there's not a damn thing to be done about it because our military is mired in the ongoing and endless bloodbath in Iraq, which never attacked us and doesn't seem to appreciate our occupation.

Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune this week that his "gut feeling" was that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack this summer, but that he wouldn't change the federal alert level until his colon goes into spasm.

Then on Thursday he told NBC: "We don't have any specific information about an imminent or near-term attack on the homeland, like we did before 9-11, which no one could've predicted. We're looking at the strategic picture over the next six months to a year, or five or ten years, or fifty. We're evaluating where that is."

He said his concern that the United States could be entering a period of heightened risk was based on greater al Qaeda activity in Pakistan and Africa, an increase in public messages from militant figures including Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and a history of summer attacks. But it may all have been a result of some bad clams.

Monday, July 09, 2007

I fuck the law. Then I jog.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--The Bush Crime Family on Monday dared Congress to take them to court for refusing to provide information and testimony demanded in an investigation into last years's purge of insufficiently obedient federal prosecutors.

White House counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter to two congressional chairmen, called their demands "unreasonable because it represents a substantial incursion into presidential prerogatives, such as bullying his former employees into keeping their goddamn mouths shut."

Congressional leaders made it clear they were prepared for a court battle unless it can be demonstrated that the federal courts are so hopelessly stacked with Bush Family operatives that it's pointless even to continue pretending we have a government.

"I hope the White House stops this stonewalling and accepts my offer to negotiate a workable solution," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who also hopes his hair will grow back.

Democrats have sought compromise because they fail to understand that a substantial majority of Americans would like to see the president hounded from office and drowned in one of those giant lakes of fermented pigshit they have in Texas. They have gotten so used to being whipped like incontinent mutts by the Bush Crime Family's button men that they don't know how to behave now that they don't actually have to take it anymore.

Bush is relying on a legal doctrine known as executive privilege, which he understands to mean that he is above the law and always will be, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow brushed off the threat of a possible congressional contempt citation, saying, "Fuck those pussies."

"What we do believe is that we are on perfectly solid legal ground," Snow said, too stupid to realize that Nixon believed the same thing thirty-three years ago.

Congress wants the documents and testimony to determine if the firing of nine or thirteen or twenty-eight of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys last year was the result of Bush Crime Family efforts to maintain access to federal power forever.

Bush and his longtime buttboy, crooked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, insist the dismissals of the federal prosecutors were justified but may have been mishandled, meaning they didn't think anyone would dare question them. Gonzales, with Bush's support, has withstood bipartisan calls to go back to Texas and work at Wal-Mart.

The Family has offered to allow current and former lackeys to talk to lawmakers, but only if they can do it somewhere hidden, and there's no record of it, and everyone's allowed to lie. Leahy and others say the offer is unacceptable, which means they'll probably end up accepting it.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee and one of the most mealy-mouthed bastards ever to draw breath, said, "I think, candidly, there's a lot of posturing going on both sides."

In his letter, Fielding refused to explain why Bush thinks executive privilege can be applied to absolutely anything he wants, then asserted presidential privilege again to block subpoenaed testimony by two former aides, Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers, who will be the ones looking at jail time while their former boss takes another vacation.

"Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who won't be riding on any small planes anytime soon, if he knows what's good for him.

There was no immediate indication how much longer Democrats would seek to reach an agreement with the White House before taking the matter up with a U.S. Attorney who can be fired by the president at any time, for any reason.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Clowntown

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--If Patrick Leahy can get his head out of Arlen Specter's ass for a minute, the Senate Judiciary Committee may seek testimony from controversial prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about the obstruction of justice case against vice presidential aide Lewis "Shitbag" Libby.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican member of the committee, revealed his astounding ignorance and whipped-whore mentality by saying, "I still haven't figured out what that case is all about."

Libby, the one-time top aide to Actual President Dick Cheney, was found guilty in March of obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA analyst whose husband dared to expose some of the bullshit leading up to the Iraq war.

Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, but Cheney hand-puppet George W. Bush commuted the sentence in order to keep the cover-up going, because no one learned a damn thing from Watergate.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who clearly loves the terrorists as much as he hates the troops, has called for the Judiciary Committee to seek Fitzgerald's testimony on the matter.

"Reluctant as I am to agree with Senator Schumer, I think he's right," Specter said on CNN's "Late Edition," then took the opportunity to repeat the right-wing lie that no crime occurred.

"Why were they pursuing the matter long after there was no underlying crime on the outing of the CIA agent?" he asked, as if undercover CIA agents are exposed by the executive branch every day and he can't see a problem with it. "Why were they pursuing it after we knew who the leaker was?" Specter continued, pretending that lying to federal investigators to prevent them finding out what happened isn't a felony.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, exposed himself as a lily-livered shitheel by implying that he needs Specter's blessing to call Fitzgerald.

"If he has no objection to Mr. Fitzgerald coming forward, I think you may very well see Mr. Fitzgerald before the Senate Judiciary Committee," Leahy said on the same CNN program. "It's not up to me, of course. I'm only the chairman. I wouldn't want Dick Cheney to have to tell me to fuck myself."

Fitzgerald's critics point out no one was ever charged with leaking the CIA agent's name and like to pretend that this isn't because the investigation was sabotaged by Libby's proven obstruction. They are scum and they are traitors, but people keep putting them on TV.

Leahy said he saw no point in summoning Libby himself because "his silence has been bought and paid for," then wet himself thinking about the stern looks he might have to endure from Dick Cheney in the near future.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Lest we forget

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Monday, July 02, 2007

No felon left behind

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush spared former White House goon I. Lewis "Shitbag" Libby from a 30-month prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that Dick Cheney told him to.

Bush's move came within hours of a federal appeals panel ruling that Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That meant Libby would have to report to prison just like any other convicted felon, and would be just a shower-room butt-rape away from flapping his gums about who actually runs the administration and what they're doing.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush lied in a statement. "But I have been told that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive for a loyal Republican. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend any time in jail."

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine--which will be paid by actor-turned-senator-turned-lobbyist-turned-actor-turned-presidential candidate Fred Thompson--and two years' probation, which is a few months more than Paris Hilton is serving. Miss Hilton is not known to have burned any CIA assets or lied to any federal grand juries.

Libby was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to federal agents investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair raised the bar for Republican treason.

Reaction was harsh from Democrats.

"As Independence Day nears, we are reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. So much for that," Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said through a spokesman.

Libby's supporters celebrated with cocaine and teenage boy-hookers.

"That's fantastic. It's a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund from the Bush Crime Family's neo-conservative enablers. "Nobody in our club should ever have to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this."

A message seeking comment from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office was not immediately returned, because some people work for a living.

Bush pretended Cheney's former hatchet man was not getting away with murder.

"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation even longer than Paris Hilton. The chump-change fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting, though not as long as his future career as a lobbyist."

A spokeswoman for Cheney said simply, "The vice president supports the president's decision." "Supports" means "made."

The president's announcement came just in time to ensure Libby will not spend a single night in jail for his treason. He recently lost an appeals court fight that was his only chance to put the sentence on hold, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already designated him inmate No. 28301-016.

Bush's statement made no mention of the term "pardon," and he made clear that he was not willing to wipe away all penalties for Libby while anyone's looking.

The president parroted the Libby Fan Club argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional service to my family."

Yet, he added, "Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. But not on my watch."

Bush then stripped away the prison time.