To err is human, to forgive, presidential
A while ago, former White House aide Scooter Libby (or, as I call him, Scooby) was sentenced to 30 months in prison for lying to investigators in the probe of the identity leak of hot undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (hot by real-world standards; Sydney Bristow isn't real).
Oh no! 30 months in prison sounds horrible. What can Scooby do? No worries, dude. President George W. Bush, as the God's divine representative on earth, commuted Scooby's sentence. Now he won't have to spend a single day in jail. Yay!
Understandably, many people are criticizing the president's decision. Too bad Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on vacation this week. I'm sure they would have lots to say about this. But all the criticism won't do any good. A US president does have the constitutional power to pardon crimes and commute sentences. Best of all, he doesn't need to provide any excuse for doing so, and his decision cannot be challenged by the courts or Congress.
What the hell were the Founding Fathers thinking when they decided to put this ridiculous provision into their Constitution? And they were doing so well too with nice concepts like having three co-equal branches of government, the point of which is precisely to prevent giving too much power to one person.
I'm no expert on US history, but I would imagine that their discussion went like this.
"The president is supposed to be the head of state, just like a king, right?"
"Um, I guess so."
"Then shouldn't he have at least some kingly powers? This Constitution we've drafted makes him a total pussy."
"Hmm. What do you propose then?"
"I know! I know! Let's make the president the commander-in-chief of the armed forces!"
"Yeah, good idea! What else?"
"How about letting the president pick justices for the Supreme Court?"
"Sweet!"
"And we should also give the president the absolute power to instantly pardon criminals without explanation and thus make a mockery out of our justice system!"
"Yay!"
They really shouldn't serve wine at constitutional conventions.
Unfortunately, we Filipinos pretty much copied the US political system, including the presidential pardon crap. Somehow, the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos wasn't enough to knock the concept of limiting executive power into the heads of the drafters of our 1987 Constitution. So as the criminal trial of former president Joseph "Erap" Estrada approaches its end, I'll make this prediction: Erap will be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but right before his supporters start rioting in the streets, he will be graciously pardoned by Her Majesty Queen Gloria in the name of national unity. Yay!
We'll see in a few weeks if my prediction is right.
...
and you begin to wonder what Paris Hilton was even doing in jail.
From what I can see,
CNN gave more coverage to Paris Hilton getting out of jail early than Scooter Libby's de facto pardon. What does that say about the priorities of CNN and presumably the American public?
She ate like a king in jail
Look at her when she got out. FAT.
Really?
I thought she hated jail food... too cheap for her aristocratic tastes.
WHy else would she be so fat?
Her face was round. Or maybe she couldn't get access to her daily slimming routines in jail. Too bad.
Maybe her cheeks were puffy
from all the crying. "Mommy! Waaah!"
Poor girl.
who think she had sex in prison?
i do!
So Sarah Silverman was right?
Loved the expression on Nicole's face
Hahaha. She's got guts.
Don't you mean Paris? :-P
Although I guess it's hard to tell them apart sometimes, heh.
Republicans are contradictory idiots
That's why I don't like Republicans. Most of them are conservative hypocrites.
About Estrada, that's the game plan. Actually, the better solution is to convict him of graft only, sentence him for six years; and since he was detained for six years now, he would be set free.
Hey, that would work
You should be a strategist for GMA :-P
Nah.
She can't afford my talent fee. =P
She can afford mine :P
But I doubt it'd be good for her :P
Yeah
You'll probably just tell her to make Hello Kitty her vice president :-P
Seeing as she's taller than hello kitty
She might just accept your recommendation.
transformers
piss me off no end. i mean autobots are just too fucking retarded to survive, they are just a bunch of fuck ups who sez, "oh i'm sorry optimus, i fucked up, huh... sorry..huh.." autobots would've been wiped out a long time ago if not for optimus prime.
if only optimus prime have got the rodimus prime's autobots and plus omega supreme, he would've dished out some serious mega-ass-whopping.
remember in the transformer movie(cartoon), when autobot city was attacked? optimus prime drove, the mother fucker drove all the way from moon base and in like 3 seconds, he wiped out half the decepticons
I don't understand half of what you're talking about,
but I'm sure Philos agrees with you.
wat
makes u think dat?
The Transformers movie
pissed him off too. You two think alike :-P
I don't understand
the last part of the movie. The ending was a little too sudden. Okay it was very sudden.
It was?
Hmm. I don't even remember the ending, heh. I enjoyed the movie though.
i
actually havn't watched the new movie yet, i was talking about the old transformer movie, the cartoon one.
I haven't watched that one yet
No wonder I couldn't understand what the hell you were talking about :-P
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