Glenn Greenwald raises an interesting point.
..."Beltway crime" is an oxymoron, at least when it is committed by a high-level political official. In exactly the way they treated all prior acts of lawbreaking by Bush officials as innocuous political controversies, the Beltway press speaks of Lewis Libby's felonies as being something other than a "real crime," all so plainly based on the premise that Libby -- as a dignified member in good standing of the elevated and all-important Beltway court -- ought to be exempt from the type of punishment doled out to "real criminals" who commit "real crimes."
If you look for a "real crime" or "real criminal" within the Beltway, an interesting pick might be Elena Sassower.
Two days before Christmas, Elena Sassower walked out of the Washington, D.C., jail where she'd just finished serving a sentence that should frighten anyone inclined to protest in the halls of power. For reading a 24-word request to testify at a judicial appointment hearing on Capitol Hill, an act that qualified as "disruption of Congress," Sassower was hit with six months' incarceration—the maximum allowed by law.
Well, you know. Scooter is "one of us."
Elena Sassower, protesting the appointment of a judge "based on his documented corruption as a New York Court of Appeals judge," got the maximum. Sassower was a pest. Being a pest in the interests of judicial integrity is -- you know as well as I do -- so much worse than lying to a federal agency and prosecutor.
Just keep that straight, okay?
Nice, we begin the political prisoner phase of our de-democratization.
Posted by: lilorphant | June 12, 2007 at 10:33 AM
Nice, we begin the political prisoner phase of our de-democratization.
Posted by: lilorphant | June 12, 2007 at 10:33 AM