Ok, ok -- in the spirit of coming together (what a high today is!) I'll grudgingly give FORMER President Bush credit where credit is due on this one: he didn't pardon Scooter Libby, as probably 90% of us on here would have bet he was going to. It wasn't like he would have tarnished an heir in doing so. It wasn't like he was risking damaging his high popularity! He had basically nothing to lose and could have handed out more favors than he did. But he refrained.
more -
Newsweek captures it here.
Bush's decision leaves a long line of rejected pardon applicants, many of whom have retained politically well-connected Washington lawyers, to make their case for presidential mercy in Bush's final days in the White House. Among them were junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black, former Illinois GOP governor George Ryan and former Louisiana Democratic governor Edwin Edwards. Bush also apparently turned down a last-minute plea from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to pardon her former GOP colleague Ted Stevens for his recent political corruption conviction.
Not that this in any way makes up for the 7,243,025 other things about the last eight years that piss us off and damaged this country -- but hey, credit where credit is due, right?
I for one was anticipating celebrating the new President Obama with a fresh list of grievances, just carried out in the past 24 hours, on my mind. But FORMER President Bush held back. Good for him.