This is rich

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libbey's prison sentence showed the president "condones criminal conduct."

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-02-2007/0004619555&EDATE=

It is Pelosi and the Congress that are condoning criminal conduct.

From Daily Kos:

Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It
by dlindorff
Mon Jul 02, 2007 at 08:46:44 AM PDT

Two bloggers get Pelosi to admit to her pinched and self-serving view of the Democrats' role in the 110th Congress.
dlindorff's diary :: ::

By Dave Lindorff

In a fascinating article published in NewsMax yesterday, online journalists Mike Stark and Dave Johnson report that in a conversation they had with speaker Nancy Pelosi, the speaker told them she had decided "at least a year ago," before Democrats had even taken control of the House and Senate, "that impeachment was something that we could not be successful with, and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and [Republican] short-comings."

She reportedly added, "The President isn’t worth it...he’s not worth impeaching. We’ve got important work to do."

Stark says he replied, "Respectfully, the question is whether or not the Constitution is worth it," to which he says Pelosi responded, "Well, yeah, the constitution is worth it if you can succeed."

. . .

The whole point of impeachment hearings is to investigate and make the case for impeachment. Until that is done, it is simply nonsense to say the process "could not be successful."

More here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/2/113025/1828

It turns out NewsMax misstated the bloggers' blogs, but the Pelosi quotes are accurate.

The correct information on the bloggers, and their full interview of Pelosi, are here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/30/05731/7541

In this interview, Pelosi recognizes there are grounds for impeachment, but states that the question of whether these crimes should be condoned is separate:

"But we are in disagreement – I’m not going to try to budge you on that – on whether the President should have been impeached. That’s a different question from 'Are there grounds for impeachment?' But should he have been impeached?"

More Democratic posturing here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-07-02-libby-reaction_N.htm

But John Edwards got most of it:

"In George Bush's America, it is apparently OK to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22009243-601,00.html



None of the Democrats made explicit that by doing this, Bush is protecting Rove, Cheney, and/or himself.

Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid got close:

"The President's decision to commute Mr Libby's sentence is disgraceful," Mr Reid said.

"Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war.

"Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone," Mr Reid said in a statement.

"The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice-President's chief of staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law.