Friday, July 13, 2007
Friday Pol-pourri
1) The enemy of my enemy is my friend: Fred Thompson meets with the IAFF to discuss their Rudy complaints.
2) Hillary makes a rare mistake -- caught on an open mic discussing with John Edwards on how to get the lesser-known candidates excluded from future debates (first item). In doing this, Clinton and Edwards give Dennis Kucinich his best soundbite in weeks:
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2) Hillary makes a rare mistake -- caught on an open mic discussing with John Edwards on how to get the lesser-known candidates excluded from future debates (first item). In doing this, Clinton and Edwards give Dennis Kucinich his best soundbite in weeks:
Dennis Kucinich, who can be seen walking up to Clinton a moment later, released a statement saying "Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President."3) Judge Reggie Walton, not surprisingly, disagrees with the president's view that Scooter Libby's sentence was "excessive":
"It is fair to say that the Court is somewhat perplexed as to how its sentence could be accurately characterized as ‘excessive,'" Judge Walton wrote. "Although it is certainly the president's prerogative to justify the exercise of his constitutional commutation power in whatever manner he chooses (or even to decline to provide a reason for his actions altogether), the Court notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case was determined after a careful consideration of each of the requisite statutory factors … and was consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as properly calculatedFor good measure, Walton also took issue with the logical judicial conundrum presented by Bush's commuting the entire prison sentence -- but leaving the probation intact:
under the United States Sentencing Guidelines."
Judge Walton said he left the two-year probation for Libby in place "with great reservation" because the statute governing supervised release appears to require that a defendant serve some jail time first. "The President has effectively rewritten the statutory scheme on an ad hoc basis to make the punishment created by Congress applicable to a situation Congress clearly did not intend," the judge wrote.
Labels: Dem 2008 Presidential, Fred Thompson, GOP 2008 President, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani
