An Editorial: Scooter

With this pardon business, Bush is simply not respecting the system.

The system has been carefully designed to help all of us feel better; to help the public get some closure. The system provides that for every outrageous screw-up, exactly one sacrificial lamb (or scapegoat) be tossed to the wolves. Sad as it is, Scooter Libby is that lamb.

Much like when villagers tossed virgins into the volcano, this act appeases the gods and spares the village. When a scandal breaks, a jittery public gets angry--but after the sacrifice, they can rest easy knowing that the guilty scapegoat is safely fired/ in jail/ in rehab and that no more stupendously stupid screw-ups like the one that just happened, will ever happen again. Everyone wins.

Past examples:

Mike Brown. The FEMA guy who single-handedly destroyed New Orleans. He was a bad apple.


Whatshername from the Abu Ghraib scandal. She single-handedly tortured every Iraqi detainee in US custody. She was a very bad apple.

Martha Stewart did something bad with stocks or something. Bad apple.

These people went to jail and/or got fired...proving that the system works!

Scooter Libby is the designated scapegoat in this case, and as such, is expected to perform some very well-defined scapegoat duties:

1) Take the blame.
2) Frown, a lot. Practice his Mr. Frowney sad faces in the mirror.
3) Do a little min. security time: edit his memoirs / perfect his tennis swing
4) Learn a very important lesson about not doing whatever bad thing it was he did. Frown to show how deeply learned the lesson was.

With this early pardon, the entire system breaks down. Nobody is paying for this awesomely corrupt screw-up, whatever it was. The virgin has escaped the volcano and the public desperately needs some closure.

Bush should just say a hobo leaked that CIA agent's identitiy and be done with it.