Article: The Scooter Libby Fuss and Presidential Prerogative

For all its ugliness, the Scooter Libby commutation is but a mouse fart in a hurricane.

The fact is that Bush is the most powerful person in the world and in all history. Not only can he make the independent decision, he can bring more weapons to bear and wreak more havoc than anyone who has ever lived.
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He needs no approval, suffers no burden to consult. If at Four o'clock tomorrow morning he lifts the red phone by his bedside and orders that Tehran be destroyed, the missiles will be launched, the planes will depart on the designated target within the hour. And it doesn't have to be Tehran. It could be Moscow, Peking, London or Chicago. We may learn of this subsequently, if he permits such communication.
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There is no way to stop this between now and tomorrow morning, however treacherous, imbecilic and mad such a prospect appears.
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When there was a chance to rise against crooked elections, we didn't do it.
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When there was a chance to deprive him of the budget for his war of lies, we gave him everything he asked for without substantive restriction, and financed the slaughter to continue.
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When there was a chance to impeach him, we took it "off the table."
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What will he do next? Anything he wishes.
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And you and I and the fate of the world are in his hands tonight, and tomorrow morning and for as long as it takes us to comprehend this reality and to muster the courage to stop the treachery.
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I am past anger at this situation, past disgust at what should be the political opposition, now the majority of both houses of the people's Congress.
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What is tragedy beyond an inevitably bad result, or a treacherous situation made hopeless by a regurgitatingly disgusting lack of courage by those vested to oppose it?
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Tomorrow morning belongs to Bush, and so do you and I, and so does the world. And thus it will remain while cowards walk the halls of Congress and the streets of America.
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And we deserve no better.
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...................Rafe Pilgrim