{"id":10139,"date":"2007-03-08T09:30:28","date_gmt":"2007-03-08T14:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10139.html"},"modified":"2007-03-08T09:30:28","modified_gmt":"2007-03-08T14:30:28","slug":"the-loyalty-and-legacy-of-the-bushies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-loyalty-and-legacy-of-the-bushies\/","title":{"rendered":"The loyalty and legacy of the Bushies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings<\/a><\/p>\n

Creature — my assistant editor at The Reaction and the head honcho at State of the Day — had this to say<\/a> in response to the Libby conviction:<\/p>\n

I say the pardon will come sooner rather than later. Libby will never spend a day in jail. The only thing that could stop a pardon is if Congress chooses to investigate what Patrick Fitzgerald called “a cloud”<\/a> around the Vice President and the White House. If that happens then I would not be surprised if the president throws Cheney under a bus — and a Libby pardon under it with him. The president may have a reputation for loyalty, but I’m betting his legacy and his need to scapegoat someone will prove to be more important than loyalty. He’s spoiled like that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree that Libby won’t go to jail — if Nixon didn’t, how can Libby? It’s only a matter of when<\/em> Bush will issue a pardon, not if<\/em>. But what I find interesting here is that Creature has highlighted the tension at the core of George W. Bush (and indeed of the Bush Family generally):<\/p>\n

Loyalty vs. Legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bushies obviously prize loyalty — those who are loyal are rewarded handsomely — but above all they seem to prize self-preservation, or selfish reputation. Given Libby’s ties to Cheney, it seems quite unlikely that Bush would throw him under a bus, and he likely would rather have Cheney resign (citing health reasons as the excuse) than expose a rift at the top (the Bushies also prize secrecy and control), but a congressional investigation could force Bush’s hand and postpone a seemingly inevitable pardon — in which case the scapegoating of Libby would continue in earnest.
\n
\nAnyway, here’s how Dickerson put it<\/a> at Slate<\/em> yesterday: “Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. Will he get a pardon, as Caspar Weinberger did in that case? Who knows? If he gets a pardon, it will suggest the president is rewarding him for taking a fall for the White House and the vice president. If he doesn’t, it will suggest that President Bush, who said he was sad for the Libby family, isn’t sad enough.”<\/p>\n

Or, if he doesn’t, that Bush only cares about himself.<\/p>\n

All I can say is: Let there be more investigation. Do not let Libby’s guilt be the end of it. The cover-up was serious, but the crime was worse<\/a> — and that’s where the focus needs to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings Creature — my assistant editor at The Reaction and the head honcho at State of the Day — had this to say in response to the Libby conviction: I say the pardon will come sooner rather than later. Libby will never spend a day in jail. The only thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}