Hillary, Bush: Who’s talking?

Washington, July 4 (AP): The hypocrisy is unpardonable. President George W. Bush’s decision to commute the sentence of a convicted liar brought out the worst in both parties and politics.

In keeping I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby out of jail, Bush defied his promise to hold wrongdoers accountable and undercut his 2000 campaign pledge to “restore honour and dignity” to the White House.

And it might be a cynical first step toward issuing a full pardon at the conclusion of his term.

Democrats responded as if they don’t live in glass houses, decrying corruption, favouritism and a lack of justice.

“This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

It was a brazen statement from a woman entangled in many Clinton White House scandals, including the final one: On his last day in office, Bill Clinton granted 140 pardons and 36 commutations, many of them controversial.

Bill’s half brother, Roger, also received a pardon, for distributing cocaine, and lobbied the White House on behalf of others.

Hillary’s brother, Hugh Rodham, was paid tens of thousands of dollars in his successful bid to win pardons for a businessman under investigation for money laundering and a commutation for a convicted drug trafficker. Her other brother, Tony, lobbied successfully for clemency on behalf of a couple convicted of bank fraud.

It’s hard to fathom that those pardons had absolutely nothing to do with cronyism or ideology, but Hillary defended them. She drew a distinction between her husband’s pardons and Bush’s commutation.

In an interview, the senator said Bill’s pardons were simply a routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none was aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy. “This,” she said of the Libby commutation, “was clearly an effort to protect the White House”.

Indeed, there is ample evidence that Libby’s actions were fuelled by animosity throughout the White House toward opponents of Bush’s push to war against Iraq.

But Hillary will have a hard time convincing most voters that her brother-in-law would have gotten a pardon in 2001 had his name been Smith.

The hypocrisy does not stop there. Bush vowed at the start of the investigation to fire anybody involved in the leak of a CIA agent’s identity, but one of the leakers, adviser Karl Rove, still works at the White House. Libby was allowed to keep his job until he was indicted for lying about his role.