Scooter scoots off to jail

Well, not quite yet. As usual, rich defendants get to tidy up their lives before surrendering themselves to the prison system. I'm not sure when he'll actually go, but

SCOOTER CONVICTED!

One count obstruction, one count perjury, not guilty on lying to the FBI. I guess they decided that he did make a mistake (really?) when first he made a statement, and then after he realized it wasn't right, decided to stick with Story A regardless of the overwhelming contrary evidence, which is when he obstructed justice and committed perjury. Or something.

UPDATE: Scooter was convicted of four out of five counts. The only one that they couldn't agree on (one juror held out) was the charge of lying to reporter Matt Cooper. (Cooper didn't keep notes so that one became he said/he said, and while it was likely it couldn't be proved-- at least to that one juror.) (So everything I said yesterday about Story A I pulled out of my butt.)

There will be appeals, and when they are exhausted, the question will be, will he be pardoned by the President? There are a couple of options here.

First, it happens just before Scooter packs his bags for prison-- that is, at the last possible second, but before he spends a single night in jail.

Second, it happens on the President's last day in office. Although, really, what would be the point? Scooter's only getting 2 years or so, and by Jan. 20, 2009 he'd be almost done-- why risk the controversy of this pardon when Scooter has like a month left and by that time has his cell all nicely decorated and comfy? (Not making light of prison, but this won't be "prison", this is Club Med California, where you can check in but not leave.) If, however, he has more than 6 months left in January 2009, my guess is he gets pardoned at that time.

Third, it happens right now, but since they haven't even done any appeals yet, and the blood is still fresh in the water as far as the news cycle goes, and there are another couple of years that Pres. Shrub* will have to face the cameras, that seems like an insane risk.

Fourth, it never happens. This could be because a) the WH just leaves him twisting in the wind, or b) because Scooter feels they've already done that, he turns state's evidence against Darth Cheney and possibly even Shrub. In which case, they can't pardon him because they'd be too busy trying to get the knife out of their collective back.

UPDATE: Those who follow these things (look for an article in this week's Newsweek) are talking about how Bush has been a stickler for the Justice Department guidelines on pardons. A Pres doesn't have to follow these guidelines, but apparently he really does. (And one of the guidelines is that the person has to have exhausted all appeals five years ago; that and other guidelines like "remorse" aren't met by Scooter.) He's given far fewer pardons at this point in his 2nd term than any president in 100 years. Those that have been answering the Lou Dobbs call-to-arms over the two border patrol agents recently convicted for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler will know that getting these guys pardoned is next to impossible with this President. So, how does a President who just a month ago touted the Justice guidelines as an excuse to avoid pardoning the border patrol agents then turn around and break them all to spring his buddy? That's going to look very, very bad. (Which, BTW, is why I believe he's been so stingy with pardons, he didn't want to draw political fire for his decisions.)

I'm really afraid that the public will forget about Plamegate, and the despicable actions taken by this administration. I'm afraid that they'll say, "Well, he resigned, he's not there anymore, who cares?" I hope that you will help me keep that from happening.

To which end, I will make a nice Plamegate tutorial for you to use when preaching from the streetcorners. Be watching for it!


*Shrub was one of Molly Ivins' classic monikers for Bush. I've noticed that since she died, lots of lefty pundits and radio folk are using that term. It could be that they didn't want to infringe on her while she was living and making a living, but now that she has passed her phrases become "public domain". I have no idea, but I'm jumping on the bandwagon. From now on, though, when I use one of her turns of phrase I'll toss in a link to my Molly post. For example, I'm so glad that Rumsfeld is gone and we can stop listening to him tell us "everything is tickety-boo."