Karl Marx famously remarked that historical events occur twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. In the case of President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence, Marx had it half-right. Americans are reliving George H.W. Bush's 1992 Iran-Contra pardons, with the same tragic consequences for the rule of law in […]

Sunday's New York Times offers an explosive story of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid into Pakistan, a special forces operation designed to "snatch and grab" Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders. The story, following July 2006 revelations that the CIA had previously disbanded its Bin Laden unit, gives lie to one of […]

The Perrspectives Bush-GOP Scandal Document Library has been expanded to include the latest news, key reports, document releases and other essential materials surrounding Bush administration and GOP wrong-doing. From Plamegate and the Scooter Libby commutation, the U.S. attorneys purge and illegal NSA domestic surveillance to Iraq intelligence manipulation, torture scandals and the ongoing Jack Abramoff […]

Back in May, I contrasted the Watergate legend of Fred Thompson with his current role as a fundraiser and spokesman for the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund. As a Republican counsel to the Senate Watergate committee, Thompson famously asked Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield if there were listening devices in the White House. In 2007, he […]

Enough has been made by this (and virtually every other center-left) blog about President Bush's outrageous endorsement of his administration's law-breaking and ongoing obstruction of justice with the Libby commutation. But it is worth remembering that this is merely Bush being Bush, consistent in his own inconsistency. That is, a gleeful vengeance towards criminals occupies […]

As Scooter Libby awoke this morning to find God in his heaven and all right with the world, his apologists were fast at work in regurgitating the trusty Republican "criminalization of politics defense" to fend off criticism of President Bush's shocking endorsement of law-breaking. Of course, that's what the conservative movement has been reduced to. […]

As expected, President Bush chose loyalty over the rule of law and commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby. While Vice President Cheney's former chief-of-staff still must face a two year probation and a $250,000 fine, the President sent a clear but cowardly message that breaking the law in the service of his agenda is the […]

In May 2006, Perrspectives detailed the one of the few efforts by the Bush Department of Justice to fight election bias. In a tragi-comic inversion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the DOJ argued that the African-American Democratic Executive Committee chairman in Noxubee County Ike Brown led an effort to suppress the vote of […]

Last week, Perrspectives detailed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lying under oath regarding the Bush administration's internal debate over the legality of its NSA domestic surveillance program. Now, former Attorney General John Ashcroft in closed door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee confirmed that Gonzales once again lied to Congress. House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes […]

In Washington this week, the Senate will take up the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Passed by the House 241-185 in March, EFCA would make it much easier for unions to organize. Predictably, red state Republican Senators backed by an alliance of business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will likely prevent the […]