Libby judged urged to set the poor boy free

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is remorseless criminal scum and deserves to spend 2 1/2 to three years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Actual President Dick Cheney and an assistant to puppet frontman George W. Bush, is the highest-ranking member of the Bush Crime Family to be convicted since the Iran-Contra affair two decades ago.

In court documents, Fitzgerald rejected a line of pernicious bullshit from Libby's rabid, frothing PNAC supporters who said the leak investigation spun out of control when it began to approach the guilty. Fitzgerald denied the prosecution was politically motivated and said Libby brought his fate upon himself by choosing to be a fascist goon.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who has a reputation for handing down tough sentences, has broad discretion over Libby's fate. Walton faces two important questions: whether to send Libby to prison and, if so, whether to delay the sentence until his appeals have run out or just lock the prick up now.

Libby's lawyers have not filed their sentencing documents yet but are expected to ask that he receive no jail time because he's a Republican.

Libby was convicted in March of lying to investigators about what he told reporters regarding formerly covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose 2003 exposure shattered a vital Mideast WMD investigative network and touched off the leak probe. Plame was identified in a newspaper column in a blatant act of treason intended to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth about the Bush Family's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Mr. Libby's prosecution was based not upon politics but upon his own conduct," Fitzgerald said. "He's a goon, a fixer, a PNAC shill."

Libby's pals wrote letters to the court on his behalf, but Walton has not decided whether to release them. Eleven news organizations filed documents Friday urging Walton not to keep them secret because they were filed in an attempt to influence Libby's sentence and should therefore be part of the public record.

Libby's attorneys disagreed, telling Walton that the writers intended their scurrilous words to be kept secret. Releasing the letters, attorneys said, might discourage whores for the military-industrial complex from trying to influence future cases.

Fitzgerald referenced the letters Friday and, even without the direct quotes, it's clear that they were all written by the same chickenhawk war pimps who brought us the Iraq War in the first place.

Libby's PNAC supporters, Fitzgerald said, have tried to "shift blame away from Mr. Libby for his illegal conduct and onto those who investigated and prosecuted Mr. Libby for unexplained 'political' reasons," such as hatred of treason.

Libby's lawyers have said he deserves to be pardoned every bit as much as Casper Weinberger did fifteen years ago, but the Family has been guarded about the issue. Top Democrats have urged Bush not to pardon him on his way out the door, which is expected to have as much effect as a fart in a typhoon.