It is too bad that conservatives, conservative intellectuals in particular are not capable of stepping back and appreciating the irony of the swill they write. Paragon of conservative intellectuals Bill Kristol writes about convicted felon I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby,

“I FEEL TERRIBLE for Scooter Libby’s family. Millions of Americans feel terrible for Scooter Libby’s family. But we can’t do anything about the injustice that has been done. Nor can we do anything to avert a further injustice looming on the horizon–Judge Reggie Walton seems inclined not to let Libby remain free pending appeal. Unlike the rest of us, however, George W. Bush is president. Article II, Section Two of the Constitution gives him the pardon power. George W. Bush can do something to begin to make up for the injustice a prosecutor appointed by his own administration brought down on Scooter Libby. And he can do something to avert the further injustice of a prison term.

Well certainly there has been an injustice. Libby was a high ranking lieutenant and helped George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove carry out a hit on former Ambassador Joesph Wilson and a high ranking CIA covert operative who was an expert on weapons of mass destruction. Libby lied and was convicted of those lies because George, Dick and Karl didn’t have the moral courage to step up and tell America and the court the details of their involvement. Libby’s problems wouldn’t disappear tomorrow if the major players in the Bush administration, the players Libby lied to protect came forward, but it isn’t a great leap to assume that he might receive a lighter sentence. We’re not going to see that happen because the three stooges George, Dick and Karl have been smirking moral cowards their entire lives – they used Libby to keep from being exposed for what they are. For them honor is just a five letter word and they probably can’t even spell accountability.

“I regard him as among the most gifted and valuable public servants of his generation,” wrote Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of conservative opinion journal Commentary. “I find it inconceivable that a man of his sterling character, who is also famous for his lawyerly scrupulousness, could deliberately have told lies to a grand jury, or for that matter to anyone else.”

Norm, yet another conservative intellectual thinks Scooter was one of the most gifted public servants of our time. If you consider taking a hit for the Bush team so that the ones that are truly guilty and benefited the most from Libby’s lies a valuable servant that is true, but not the public servant part. Libby served his masters, not the nation, not the public and certainly not the common good.

wrote Francis Fukuyama, a prominent foreign-policy thinker. “To the contrary, in my discussions with him on issues from Middle East diplomacy to his work on the Cox Commission to the Iraq war, he has always been open to different views and notably without rancor.”

Note the WaPo doesn’t identify Fukuyama as neocon who’s views of how to handle foreign policy in the middle-east helped pave the way for the Iraq debacle.

“Sadly I believe that Mr. Libby’s premature departure from the Administration has been a major reason for the downward spiral of the situation in Iraq and the consuming mess in which we find ourselves today regarding that country,” he wrote.

If Libby hadn’t been caught up in his lies on behalf of his friends in the administration Iraq would look like Pasadena on a Sunday afternoon in early fall. If he was so valuable how come Cheney hasn’t stepped forward to admit his lies so that Scooter could save Iraq. Whatever these people are, they are not mature rational adults. Their loyalty first and last is the Conservative Movement, not America. Ultimately that is why the Right is blowing a fuse today because no act of betrayal really counts when it is done on behalf of the cause – Notes From the Libby Sentencing

The modern Republican party is built on the construct that all government is bad, and once in power they set about bringing into fruition this self-fulfilling prophecy with ruthless efficiency. They destroy everything they touch, but they are very good at what they are good at: PR, partisan politics and preserving their own power. From where they stand, from where Scooter stands, there is no culpability in anything done in the service of this, and Scooter was just doing his job.

For the Right the job, the Cause is greater then America, greater then the law. The Cause has and will continue to be the Right’s priority, America and its democratic ideals are just excess baggage, bastard children they’d rather ignore.

Bloomberg On JFK Plot: ‘Stop Worrying, Get A Life’

“There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life,” he said.

Bloomberg is a Republican and the mayor of city number one on any terror list, yet he manages to have a little perspective. The right-wing blogs and pundits are upset because putting things in their proper perspective is a road block in the all fear all the time agenda.

Tallying Bush Progress on Democracy or Georgie gets a report card and racks up a perfect “F”.

IRAQ By every measure, the occupation has been a catastrophe. With at least 70,000 civilians killed, 2 million refugees, a civil war, dismemberment physical, economic and social across the land, it’s foolhardy to still say the invasion was worth it, or that lengthening American involvement there will improve the situation.

AFGHANISTAN Briefly thought a model of anti-terrorism conquest and reconstruction under NATO’s protection, the country is increasingly looking like Iraq. The Taliban controls entire provinces. Opium production, which fuels Taliban and terrorist activities, is at record highs. Various members of NATO contributing troops there — Germany, France, Canada and the Netherlands among them — are rethinking their role. NATO itself risks becoming the irrelevant auxiliary of American foreign policy.

If only they’d let Super Scooter out of jail he’d have this whole mess cleaned up in no time.

“Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.” – Robert Kennedy