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Appropriate?

I’m honestly asking - is it appropriate for Gen. Peter Pace to be vouching for the character of Scooter Libby? Scoundrels like Wolfowitz and Matalin (as well as the increasingly clueless James Carville) I get, but Pace?

26 Responses to “Appropriate?”


  1. Gravatar Icon 1 Hedley

    General Pace isn’t vouching for his character but rather offering his opinion based on professional, not personal, interactions. If he was personally vouching for his character (i.e., “I know Scooter to be a moral and honest person…”), then I would agree with you that that would be an inappropriate action.

  2. Gravatar Icon 2 fd10801

    You’re asking because you have doubts. What gives you pause?

    The letter establishes the relevancy of the comments. Do you think it is inappropriate because Gen. Pace is active military?

  3. Gravatar Icon 3 fd10801

    If he was personally vouching for his character … then I would agree with you that that would be an inappropriate action.
    Why, Hedley?

  4. Gravatar Icon 4 Hedley

    Because he shouldn’t be using his position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to influence a sentencing decision based on non-professional interactions.

  5. Gravatar Icon 5 lib4

    At this point every Republican apologist short of GWB’s dog Barney has asked for a pardon of this unpatriotic self serving criminal.

  6. Gravatar Icon 6 fd10801

    based on non-professional interactions.
    That’s not what General Pace did, IMHO.

    this unpatriotic self serving criminal.
    Spare me, lib4, Benedict Arnold he ain’t.

  7. Gravatar Icon 7 Hedley

    That’s not what General Pace did, IMHO.

    I agree. My point is that because the General limited the letter to his professional interactions I don’t have a problem with it (but, admittedly, could see where others might as the Joint Chiefs is supposed to be apolitical, etc.) but would have a problem with a letter that had been based on personal interactions.

  8. Gravatar Icon 8 mdhawk

    Frank,

    What the hell do you mean, Benedict Arnold he ain’t? A crime is a crime, isn’t that what you Republicans are always bellyaching about? Whether it is immigration or drug addiction or anything else, where there is the slightest suggestion that restraint or mercy should be shown.

    Fact of the matter is, Gen. Pace is the sitting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He has no business providing a opinion of any kind as to the suggested punishment of a convicted felon.

    Offering an opinion on his character is done for the exclusive purpose of trying to convince the judge that Libby deserves a lesser sentence than he believes the judge is going to render. Period. End of Story.

    Pace was not in the courtroom during the trial, and did not hear the evidence. His opinion is about as valuable as yours is.

    Libby’s character outside of the character he demonstrated that led to the specific conduct for which he was convicted is irrelevant. He committed a felony, and the opinion of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the ex-President of the World Bank, the Vice President of the United States who happily threw his buddy under the bus to save his own ass, or God himself, is irrelevant is the judge’s determination of sentence.

  9. Gravatar Icon 9 Squirrel

    Good luck, mdhawk. Logic, reason and common sense don’t factor into discussions with Frank.

  10. Gravatar Icon 10 Nimrod Gently

    I get what Hedley’s saying, and it’s a good point in the abstract sense, but it’s such a thin, objective defining line that one suspects it wouldn’t matter so much to him in this particular case without the opportunity to disagree with Oliver.

  11. Gravatar Icon 11 Anonymous

    He has no business providing a opinion of any kind as to the suggested punishment of a convicted felon.
    Is that your opinion? Well, good.
    Now explain to me why that matters.

  12. Gravatar Icon 12 Nimrod Gently

    I’m assuming that’s Frank. Why d’you think?

  13. Gravatar Icon 13 Hedley

    Nimrod, as Oliver is not expressing an opinion I am not disagreeing with him. I will agree with you, however, that it is definitely a thin line.

  14. Gravatar Icon 14 deus_ex_machina

    Benedict Arnold he ain’t

    That’s for sure - at least Benedict Arnold had a track record of defeating our enemies before he decided to endanger his fellow Americans.

  15. Gravatar Icon 15 fd10801

    mdhawk, deus ex machina: Let’s see if Libby’s name will be as well known by Christmas, as Benedict Arnold’s is after 200 and something years.

  16. Gravatar Icon 16 Nimrod Gently

    You have to be Benedict Arnold to be a criminal now. Holy shit, you keep raising that equivalency bar there, don’t you just.

  17. Gravatar Icon 17 fd10801

    No, Nimrod, they did, by calling Libby a “unpatriotic self serving criminal”.

    You would thing he took top secret documents and stuffed them in his pants.

    Oh, wait…

  18. Gravatar Icon 18 jerry

    I don’t think General Pace should be helping in an election, but I have no problem with his writing a letter supporting Libby.

    I honestly had more of a problem (a disappointment really) with Natan Sharansky’s letter.

  19. Gravatar Icon 19 Nimrod Gently

    Which he is. This is another example of your inability to think in anything but extremes.

  20. Gravatar Icon 20 rainlion

    a lame Berger reference?! ROFL

    That’s the best you can come up with fd??? That in itself speaks volumes about your position on Libby. Thanx for the chuckle though.

  21. Gravatar Icon 21 Enlightened Liberal

    Yea, Sandy Berger means that anything that conservatives have ever done no matter what is ok. Didn’t you get the memo?

  22. Gravatar Icon 22 fd10801

    “The best I can come up with?” For what? The example of a crime that went virtually unnoticed? Or an example of a crime that involved violating simple laws we all know are illegal?

    Like theft of documents from an Archive, and then destroying them. You wouldn’t do that in a High School library, let alone the National Archives.

  23. Gravatar Icon 23 merlallen

    went unnotice frank? he was convicted and paid a fine for taking a COPY of a document you stupid ignorant chickenhawk shit eater.

  24. Gravatar Icon 24 Dugger

    And if Libby is to be in jail, why the h*ll ain’t Sandy B?

    Justice anyone?

  25. Gravatar Icon 25 Enlightened Liberal

    When was Sandy Berger convicted of perjury? Oh, never mind just another false equivalency.

  26. Gravatar Icon 26 fd10801

    EL: I didn’t say Berger was convicted of perjury.

    By the way, merlallen, you anencephalic coprophagous delinquent, I am not a chickenhawk. Unlike you, I enlisted in the US Army,and did my time in Vietnam.

    I am sure that, as much as you would have would loved “shower time” with real men, you never joined the military, and your concept of a combat zone is when Dunkin’ Donuts is down to one cruller.

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