The Buck Stops Nowhere

I wasn't at all surprised that convicted perjurer and justice obstructer, I. Lewis Libby, got his sentence commuted by Bush. What I am surprised about is how many people I run into in my highly educated enclave of suburban excess who have no recognition of who I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is. It would be one thing if he was some obscure cabinet member who just recently got into the news, but Scooter has been in the news since the whole Plame scandal blew open and Fitzgerald handed down indictments. Reporters went to jail and there was a trial. You had deeper issues of an administration who would reveal the identity of a once covert agent which revealed every covert contact she dealt with that is still in the field trying to protect our country. It is weird to me that people seem so unaware of current events.

I am not surprised that Scooter got off. The Bush administration is in this alternative universe where the concept of personal responsibility is suspended in favor of praising gross incompetence. Mistakes were made and this job is hard are the constant mantras. This would be tolerable if there were not so many sobering and ghastly consequences of all these presidential failures, falsehoods, and foolhardiness.

It has just been reported that adjusted for inflation, we have spent just as much money in Iraq and Afghanistan as we did in Vietnam. Billions and billions are wasted and there is no accountability. The buck not only stops nowhere, but it evaporates into the ether of corruption and cronyism.