'TIS THE SEASON . . . FOR PARDONING TURKEYS. WILL IRVING "SCOOTER" LIBBY BE NEXT?

The dull lame-brains who program television make a big deal about how presidents "pardon" turkeys on Thanksgiving (and then sit down to a big turkey feast, of course). But I haven't seen much about plans in the White House to perpetrate another major crime against our country by this criminal regime. And that would be? A pre-trial pardon for the arch-traitor Irving Libby (aka- "Scooter").

Jason McLure writes in yesterday's Legal Times that "A pardon before the trial, of course, could save the White House the messiness of having Vice President Dick Cheney or presidential aide Karl Rove called to the stand to testify about the administration's behind-the-scenes efforts to sell the invasion of Iraq. But short-circuiting the judicial process for a favored deputy would no doubt create a political firestorm." No doubt.

Libby, who has been charged with 30 years worth of perjury, obstruction, and making false statements during the investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, hasn't been charged with treason, a crime that could lead to the death penalty. All his charges are about process, not about the actual criminal behavior emanating from the rogue regime in the White House. There is no one who ever doubted that Bush would pardon him. The question has always been when. People who take treason seriously would like to see a trial so the public has at least a chance to get to the bottom of the criminal behavior inside the Bush Regime. Cheney is adamant that there be no trial and he has let Bush know that he must prevent it no matter what the consequences.

According to McLure, "The vast majority of presidential pardons have been granted after a review through the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney-- which typically only reviews cases long after defendants have been tried and convicted." Cheney has categorically stated in no uncertain terms that this is not something he could accept.

It is widely expected that Bush will be pardoning a long list of Republican criminals connected to his regime, many of whom have refrained from implicating key executive branch operatives in expectation of pardons. Does anyone think Jeffrey Skilling is going to serve 24 years in prison? And Abramoff? Cunningham? Ney? Noe? And the indictments are just at the earliest stages now that the election is over. Bush will probably have to deal with Curt Weldon, Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle, Conrad Burns... as many as a score of Republican members of Congress-- and he can pardon William Jefferson while he's at it-- just to show how nonpartisan his pardoning' is.