Posted July 3, 2007
No doubt you've heard by now that President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby's sentence for perjury.
In his statement about the commutation, Bush said the following: “I respect the jury’s verdict, but I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."
30 months. 30 months? It would not have been even three years for what, and I'm sure this will all be made clear in twenty years or so, amounts to one of the hugest crimes in American history. One wonders what sentence Bush might actually find suitable for someone who jeopardized national security resulting in the deaths of 3586 U.S. men and women and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
Reading the news this morning, I remembered a story from Bush's years as governor of Texas.
You probably remember Karla Faye Tucker. She was the woman from Texas, who in 1983, killed two people with a pick ax and was subsequently sentenced to death by lethal injection. While on death row, she became born-again and an icon of death penalty abolishment.
Almost ten years later, when it came time for her execution, she made a request to Governor Bush that her sentence be commuted. (This is exactly what Scooter Libby just got.) Remember here that a commutation is NOT a pardon. For Tucker a commutation of her sentence would NOT have meant she would get out of jail (though one wonders if anyone ever sat Bush down and explained the differences between commutation and pardon). It would have meant a new sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
And yet despite Karla Faye Tucker's request for commutation, and despite the vocal protests and pleas of everyone from Pat Robertson to Pope John Paul II, from Newt Gingrich to the United Nations, Bush was unrelenting in his quest to execute and signed off on her death warrant. (By the way, did you know that during his six years as governor of Texas, Bush oversaw over 152 executions? Pretty sure that's more than any other governor in history. Heckuva job Bushie!)
During the 2000 campaign for the Republican nomination, conservative talking head Tucker Carlson interviewed Governor Bush and asked him about the Karla Faye Tucker case. Here's what Carlson wrote about the interview:
In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker.
"Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Karla Faye] Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'"
"What was her answer?" I wonder.
"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."
I must have looked shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.
This, my friends, is the innate depravity of our President. He mocked the pleas of a dying woman. He spat in the face of a woman who'd sought forgiveness. And this is also what our President thinks of you, Everyday American.
Let the bodies of our friends, children, parents, spouses pile up in Iraq. Let the poor suffer and drown in New Orleans. Let men and women in inner cities just trying to survive be given mandatory sentences for drug possession no matter how little. And let the rich and powerful cronies of this administration get off free of their crimes without even blinking at the injustice of it all.
This has got to end.
Yesterday, the White House actually closed the public comment line. Amazing.
Well, it's back up and running. Call the White House. Tell them what you think. 202-456-1111.
Here's a poem by Steve Scafidi that exemplifies my overall point. The crime and circumstances are not necessarily the issue here. Injustice is. Horror is.
To me, President Bush is the embodiment of both.
On the Death of Karla Faye Tucker
And why not celebrate the deaths of our enemies?
Achilles dragging the corpse of Hektor
through war fields of Troy
sang a lost and hymnal cadence of joy
I imagine that warmed the cold hearts of the gods
for love of blood and vengeance and victory
has always been a kind of prayer.
Dante among the souls
in hell's garden swooned to hear so many
tormented cries from the delicate blue mouths
of the damned and was full of sympathy at first
which was blasphemy and he learned
slowly to savor the terror
of sinners and learned compassion only
goes so far and then must end and turn to an ugliness
without end which is hell. And so the idea of heaven
must also be steeped in a cruelty
without end. Why not
then, celebrate the deaths of our enemies--
those who break into our lives without being asked,
to crush and to maim? For Texas just killed a woman
who took a pick ax for a while against
gravity and swung it
down into the curled body of another
woman trying to sleep--just to sleep--one night
and who begged after a while more to be killed
quicker and who was not. Why not
raise a drink and sing
when the murderer's arm swells up
darkly and the brain stops and her shining soul
plummets into whatever abyss her god invented
meticulously and patiently one night
raking over the coals
of His own--I suppose--mysterious
rages and childhood dementia and darkness old
as His gods which are the coals themselves twinkling
like starlight here in America where
what is commonly
unspeakable is frequently described--
a thing by which we might recognize ourselves. No,
I can't celebrate the death of Karla Faye Tucker
although I would like to. Although
I have tried.
So goodbye ax. Goodbye stars.
Goodbye gods we make to sanction who we are
but will not now admit--simple thugs of history
we are given today to alter somehow
for our own sake.
Even the bloody Achilles eventually
gave Hektor's body to Hektor's father at the gate.
Lord, I give you back your image and the myth
of benevolence and the illusion
You exist.
Karla Tucker was not my enemy.
Horror is. That common murderous evil bitch.
+++
Acknowledgments:
I wasn't able to post the poem here with its proper format due to html constraints.
Please click here to read the poem in its proper form.
“On the Death of Karla Faye Tucker” from For Love of Common Words by Steve Scafidi © Copyright 2006 by Steve Scafidi.
Comments
Misty Nuckolls mitzibel says...
Oh, my.
I am a vengeful soul, and that poem hit a little close to home.
Thanks. I needed that.
Posted 3 July 2007, 10:34 a.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous DonQuipunch says...
>>>At one point, a witness entered the bedroom to find Tucker attempting to pull the axe out of Dean by using her foot on him as leverage. After she pulled the axe from his body, she lifted it above her head, smiled at the witness, and swung it into Dean again. Tucker and Garrett then used the axe on Deborah until, when Deborah begged for the end to her pain, Garrett embedded the axe in her throat. Tucker later expressed satisfaction about her actions when news of the case was broadcast on TV and boasted to others of her actions. Garrett and Tucker were convicted of committing murder with a pickaxe.<<<
I'm a little confused. Is your point that clemency should not have been granted to Scooter? Or is your point that clemency SHOULD be granted in even more extreme cases like this one?
Posted 3 July 2007, 10:51 a.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous MyName says...
I think her point was that President Bush only cares about the justice of a sentence if one of his buddies is involved, and if you're not well connected, then you needn't bother with asking for clemency.
Which is a mockery of the word for "mercy" as far as I'm concerned.
Posted 3 July 2007, 11:42 a.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous DonQuipunch says...
kk, so this isn't about justice so much as it is about illustrating the disparities in its application and subsequently railing on Bush. So long as we get to that part, all is well.
Seriously though, I agree with what you are saying and the favoritism Bush shows his cronies is sick and blatant. What I'm not on board with is the argument that because Molly Hatchet found God, she is somehow deserving of clemency, especially when the initial argument made before that was that someone else, who tangibly committed a lesser crime is undeserving. Pick one.
Posted 3 July 2007, 1:22 p.m. Suggest removal
Will Babbit wbabbit says...
I (for once) actually agree with DonQ. I agree with the spirit of the argument that Bush's cronyism has reached new heights today, however I think that drawing a parallel between Libby and a pickaxe killer is more than a little much...
Posted 3 July 2007, 1:47 p.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous Shelby says...
Do we remember William Jefferson Clinton? I don't think we do...
Posted 3 July 2007, 3:34 p.m. Suggest removal
Will Babbit wbabbit says...
At least he waited until the end though, jeez...
Posted 3 July 2007, 3:52 p.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous Roadkill_Rob says...
"Do we remember William Jefferson Clinton? I don't think we do."
Yep, I do...I was ashamed for what he did that as well. It doesn't change the fact that Bush is responsible for A LOT more atrocities in his 8 years. It's ridiculous to even compare the two.
Presidential pardons should be outlawed. It's clear they all abuse this power.
Posted 3 July 2007, 4:56 p.m. Suggest removal
Will Babbit wbabbit says...
I guess my point that I left out, is that it should be a matter of remembering who used the most pardons for the wrong reasons, or who did the worst job, the point is maybe for once we should all hope for a GOOD president, not a BETTER president...it's just depressing...
Posted 3 July 2007, 5:11 p.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous Shelby says...
good point, Will.
Posted 3 July 2007, 5:21 p.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous thetomdotdot says...
"One wonders what sentence Bush might actually find suitable for someone who jeopardized national security resulting in the deaths of 3586 U.S. men and women and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians."
I don't get it.
What Scooter Libby did was bad enough, in my book, without exaggerating. The Bush administration offered him up as a scapegoat, so lets not perpetuate the myth by holding him responsible for the entire war. GW did us all a favor. This commutation is more effective than any impeachment or war crimes trial as an out and out admission of culpability. But please, people, lets keep our eyes on the prize.
If I am misunderstanding the sentence quoted, then never mind.
Posted 3 July 2007, 8:19 p.m. Suggest removal
Jill Ensley godjilla says...
Ignore my comment on your other blog and MyName...."her"?
Posted 3 July 2007, 10:30 p.m. Suggest removal
Josh Robbins gutternoise says...
Glad this post was useful for some necessary discussion. And also, sorry I wasn't able to participate up until now. Had to got to work until late. You know how it is....
Misty: I'm curious to know what makes you say "vengeful." Definitely, I think, a fair assessment considering the Classical references to Achilles and Dante and others, and also stunning images & lines like, "Why not
raise a drink and sing / when the murderer's arm swells up / darkly and the brain stops and her shining soul / plummets into whatever abyss her god invented." I think the poem, at the same time, is also an exploration of where that rage is actually directed, and, personally, I find it useful and instructive. Perhaps I need to remember that my rage is no so much at the President and his cronies, as much as it is evil in the world. I just want it all to be better. Yes, a simplistic statement. But really and truly I believe that poetry can be a force for good and for change in the world, even though it's one person and one poem at a time. Thoughts?
DonQuipunch: Your question is spot on. I don't think Scooter should have been given clemency. And I do think that Tucker should have been given clemency because I am 100% against the death penalty. That said, my intention, though, was not to draw a comparison between the two crimes or their respective penalties, and I see I should have been more clear. From what I posted, you ask fair questions. My real outrage is at the hypocrisy of how Bush responded.
Posted 4 July 2007, 8:19 a.m. Suggest removal
Josh Robbins gutternoise says...
MyName: I really agree with your comment. I'm not sure though how much the idea of mercy comes into play for Bush other than that he spits on it. For him, it's not about mercy or forgiveness or the compassion he so often touts and flings about, and this is what makes me so furious. He talks Christianity and being saved, but it's all a ruse so that we ignore what's really going on behind the scenes. He mocks the powerless and works only on behalf of the powerful.
Shelby: The comparison to President Clinton is ridiculous. Do I really need to say why?
wbabbit: You may be right that there is an implicit comparison between Tucker & Scooter in my argument and pointing that out is necessary to the discussion, but don't let the minor logical fallacies misdirect your outrage at the real issue here: Bush does not care about you or average Americans. Also, I completely agree with this statement: "the point is maybe for once we should all hope for a GOOD president, not a BETTER president." "Hope" is maybe the operative word here. For me, that person is Barack Obama. How 'bout you? I think we also have a duty to make our voices heard, to demand that policies improve, if not the quality of the person's character (which is not gonna happen with Bush).
thetom: My intention is not to argue that Libby is the soul person responsible for the war, and I'm surprised you think I might be that naive. I'm not some knee-jerk, dreadlocked, uninformed, convenience liberal. And I'm not the one offering Scooter up as a scapegoat. It's the Bush Administration. What Libby did was obstruct justice and the investigation of what went on behind the scenes of the drumbeat to war. Libby is part and parcel of the machine that grinds up the bodies. His actions, and others, got us here and what Bush has done is an injustice to those who've died and those who live in this country and hold the Constitution & Bill of Rights in high esteem. I do completely agree, though, that this is an admission of guilt by Bush. Scooter will likely be the Jack Abramoff of the upcoming elections. I'm not sure it's the same as a trial at the Hague, but that's never going to happen. The U.S. isn't even a participant and that's a whole other issue in itself.
Posted 4 July 2007, 8:20 a.m. Suggest removal
Will Babbit wbabbit says...
My hope is that Al will come out of the shadows and save us at the last second. Deep in my heart I do not believe Barack or Hillary can win, sadly, against the machine that is Karl Rove.
Posted 4 July 2007, 9:06 a.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous thetomdotdot says...
"I'm not some knee-jerk, dreadlocked, uninformed, convenience liberal."
Whew. Thanks for clearing that up. Frankly, I was a little surprised too. It's probably just my reading comprehension mixed with the fact that I am sitting here with my flamethrower just waiting for the inevitable string of knee-jerk, dreadlocked, uninformed, convenience liberals to start flogging the truth out of this commutation until the republicans play it into a sympathy vote next year. Family values and all.
Just me.
Posted 4 July 2007, 12:07 p.m. Suggest removal
Josh Robbins gutternoise says...
thetom: Yeah. If you start to read about impeachment being on the table & hanging people from yardarms, get ready for another Republican majority in both Congressional houses. I'd much prefer to see what Olberman wants happen. Did you see his Special Comment on all of this last night? countdown.msnbc.com. Be interested to read your thoughts on it.
Posted 4 July 2007, 2:18 p.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous thetomdotdot says...
My thoughts? Well, Olbermann does not have dreadlocks.
From his Special Comment.
"I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war."
I accuse the entire congress, both sides of the aisle, of gross incompetence in authorizing the invasion of Iraq. If Bush ever faces war crimes trials, I want to see every songle "yes" vote at the table with him.
"I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11." Inexcusable abdication of responsibility on the part of the intelligence committee. There are a number of countries with *actual* links to Al Queda. This does not rationalize an invasion.
"I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient." Agreed.
"I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors." Too much credit. We should all be looking in the mirror.
"I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent." THIS is what I'm talking about. The same people who wonder why we didn't stop the attacks are chasing conspiracy theories and complaining about taking their shoes off at the airport. This is bullshit and blah blah. Just because Bush is an idiot doesn't mean that there isn't an entire culture being bred to kill us.
"I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought." Again. Too much credit.
"I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents." This is an indictment of human nature. Pisses me off all the time, but Bush is neither the author of nor even the best at this common practice.
"I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it." Agreed. Not even the most conservative of my friends will deny with a straight face that Cheney is a opportunistic dickhead who exploited the farthest reaches of the influences of his office. The only satisfaction I have is that Cheney will have not a moments peace the rest of his life. The lawsuits have not even begun, and probably won't until he is safely out of office and enjoying a bit less immunity.
It's easy - and I mean REALLY easy - to point the finger at Rove/Bush/Cheney. But I hold the American people responsible. Conservative Republicans for the crime of ever offering this man as a presidential candidate, and Liberal democrats for not offering a viable alternative. Look at the current crop.
When Hilary Clinton is not only the most viable candidate, but possibly the only qualified candidate, then we, my fellow Americans, are in a world of shit.
Posted 4 July 2007, 5:09 p.m. Suggest removal
Misty Nuckolls mitzibel says...
Josh, you asked for it ;) My communication biorhythm is on a high, or some hippie shit like that, so I don't hold myself responsible for unloading on your blog even though I have my own.
**I'm curious to know what makes you say "vengeful."*
Well, I mean it pretty literally. I still have enough monkey-brain dominant in me to cry out at gut level for old-school Biblical-wrath eye for an eye *vengeance*--and that's just for crimes against others. If it's harm done to me or mine, I want to go all Roman crucifiction-tactic on their asses and make a big, bloody, completely out-of-proportion spectacle of the harm I do to them, to warn off anyone else who thinks that trying something like that would be a good idea. (That's what I *want* to do. All I've actually *managed* to do was rupture one guy's testicles and burn down another's garage with his dog in it.)
***Definitely, I think, a fair assessment considering the Classical references to Achilles and Dante and others, and also stunning images & lines like, "Why not
raise a drink and sing / when the murderer's arm swells up / darkly and the brain stops and her shining soul / plummets into whatever abyss her god invented." ***
Hell yeah, a million times so. That's what resonates so hard with me, I can't tell you the number of drinks I've raised while reading of the deaths of monsters wearing people skins. Dante and the Classics . . . well, my personal cosmological view doesn't include Hell, so that's not what hits me so hard viscerally, but it does, on an intellectual level, illustrate the point perfectly for me. I haven't read Dante since I was a pretentious high-schooler getting a big goth-boner over the depictions of Hell and then hastily whipping up a report on how it was just a thinly-veiled vehicle for condemning the villains in his society. What, that was some deep bullshitting for a fourteen-year-old, and it got me great grades ;)
Posted 5 July 2007, 2:54 a.m. Suggest removal
Misty Nuckolls mitzibel says...
--Continued---
***I think the poem, at the same time, is also an exploration of where that rage is actually directed, and, personally, I find it useful and instructive.***
My point exactly. I realize that my rage towards individuals who are already so fucked up as to perpetrate that sort of shit is useless, justified as it may feel. It serves no purpose, as long as that person as a threat has been neutralized (and I'm sorry, but the most effective and fool-proof way of doing this, barring genuine telepaths or some other crazy sci-fi shit, is killing them). Getting pissed off at the circumstances that turn a person born with a soul just like you and I *into* a monster like that. . . well, dammit, there's somewhere useful a person can channel *that* anger into.
***Perhaps I need to remember that my rage is no so much at the President and his cronies, as much as it is evil in the world. ***
Honestly, once I got to the poem, it wasn't about Bush for me anymore. I'm in that headspace right now, sorry.
****But really and truly I believe that poetry can be a force for good and for change in the world, even though it's one person and one poem at a time. Thoughts?****
Absolutely. Any art can do that. That's why we've been doing it since we first figured out that charred wood made marks on rocks and that the next person to come along might like to know that they could kill themselves some food right about there.
I used to think that the concept of innate altruism was bullshit. That's not the case anymore. I can admit that now since scientists have figured out that the urge to help someone in need is as hardwired in our brains as the urge to eat or screw. I'm not anorexic or frigid, right, so now I don't feel embarrassed admitting that I'm not immune to other people's pain, no matter what it made them do.
Likewise, I'm no longer so post-pretentious that I can't admit that poetry, or art, or music, or film, or street-corner pamphlet-pushing, or any other way we find to reach out to one another, does have the power to change, if not a person's life, then at least the way they think about living it.
Okay, I'm shutting up now.
G'night, Gracie!
Posted 5 July 2007, 2:58 a.m. Suggest removal
Will Babbit wbabbit says...
OK, so now maybe Al's not looking quite as good...
Posted 5 July 2007, 9:12 a.m. Suggest removal
Jill Ensley godjilla says...
Babbit, bite your tongue!
Posted 5 July 2007, 10:52 a.m. Suggest removal
Anonymous DOTDOT says...
Now leaving Kansas is Josh
a bookselling poet by gosh
the highway is weaving
and we are left grieving
the veritably poetic goulash
Hey. Not everyone gets a bad limerick.
Posted 23 July 2007, 2:22 p.m. Suggest removal
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.