President Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s jail sentence yesterday. To be honest, I am not sure what I think about that decision. But lots of the usual suspects predictably wasted no time in flaying Bush for subverting the Constitution and a variety of other sins.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the president, saying his decision “does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.”
But eight years ago when President Clinton offered commutation of the prison sentences of 16 Puerto Rican FALN terrorists, Pelosi opposed a Sense of Congress Resolution expressing disapproval. Pelosi wasn’t able to vote on the resolution because she was held up in traffic, but she stated for the record that, had she been on the House floor, she would opposed the resolution, which passed 311-41, with 72 voting present.
Don’t remember FALN? Gilbert Gallegos was national president of the FOP in 1999 and offered this reminder during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“Make no mistake, the FALN is a militant terrorist organization with violent, separatist goals. Between 1974 and 1983, the FALN staged a series of bombing attacks on United States political and military targets, mostly in New York City and Chicago. These acts of terrorism claimed the lives of six people, Mr. Chairman. Scores were wounded and some, including three New York City police officers, were permanently maimed by the powerful explosives planted by the FALN.
“Let me describe to you a series of bomb attacks which occurred on the evening of 31 December 1982. At close to 9:30pm, a powerful explosion rocked the building at 26 Federal Plaza. Members of the New York City bomb squad arrived on the scene minutes later and just as they began their investigation, a second explosion, the blast of which could be felt blocks away, occurred at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. And the night was just beginning.
“Moments later a third explosion ripped into police headquarters at One Police Plaza. The blast was so powerful that it blew out the heavy glass and frame of a revolving door. This bomb, however, did more than several thousands of dollars worth of structural damage to a government building. This blast hit Detective Rocco Pascarella, blowing away most of his left side. Detective Pascarella survived the blast, but he lost his left leg, his left ear and his left eye.
“Detectives Anthony S. Senft and Richard Pastorella of the New York City Police Department, who had been on the scene to investigate the aftermath of the earlier blasts now realized that there were more bombs in the area. The streets were clogged with New Year’s Eve revelers, many of whom did not speak English and did not recognize the plain-clothes detectives as police. Many of these innocent by-standers had to be bodily removed from the scene.
“With much precious time having elapsed, the two detectives prepared to disarm one of the bombs. It went off in their face.
“Detective Senft was blown backward eighteen feet into the air. He found himself blind and deaf with a fractured right hip, his face riddled with concrete, metal and other debris. Extensive surgery eventually allowed Detective Senft to recover some of the sight in his left eye and some of the hearing in his left ear.
“Detective Pastorella was not so lucky. The explosion tossed him twenty-five feet, blew off all the fingers on his right hand and left him blind in both eyes. He has had thirteen major operations and twenty titanium screws inserted just to hold his face together.
“While most people watched the ball drop in Times Square or on their television sets, these three officers were fighting for their lives in emergency surgery.”
You can read Gallegos’ full testimony here. It is a painful reminder of one of Clinton’s most mystifying decisions.
Evidently for Pelosi, being active participants in an organization that plants bombs to kill and maim innocent people is a much less serious crime than telling a federal grand jury you aren’t sure you remember details about who you told what in conversations several years past.
Then there is The New York Times, which editorially blasts Bush with these words: “Mr. Bush’s assertion that he respected the verdict but considered the sentence excessive only underscored the way this president is tough on crime when it’s committed by common folk.”
But when it was Clinton commuting sentences of terrorists, the Times saw things much differently: “At the same time, justice demands that sentences fit the crime as proved in a court of law…The cause of justice and mercy may well be served with shortened terms.”
Sometimes all you can do is just shake your head and go on because there is no explaining such raw hypocrisy.
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