Cindy Sheehan announced July 3 that she is asking people to join her in a 10-day walk from Atlanta to Washington DC, starting July 13 for a “people’s accountability movement.” On her blog, she said “the straw that broke my camel’s back of exhausted ennui” was Bush’s commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “I tried to remove myself from the political realm of the U.S., what BushCo is turning into an Evil Empire, but the blatant audacity of George commuting Scooter’s sentence … has dragged me kicking and screaming back in,” she wrote. The march will began after Sheehan celebrates her 50th birthday at her former protest site in Crawford, TX, where she will turn over the deed of her 5-acre lot there to its new owner, radio talk-show host Bree Walker. (AP via TruthOut, July 3)
Senate vote on Scooter Libby pardon down Memory Hole
Adding insult to injury, days after Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence, Judge John Bates (a Bush appointee) dismissed Valerie Plame's case aganst Dick Cheney and other administration figures. Plame says she intends to appeal. (NPR, July 20)
Meanwhile, the Senate agreed July 19 to permanently remove from the Congressional Record a vote they'd taken earlier that day on a measure saying the president should not pardon Scooter Libby. After the vote failed 47-49, Republicans struck back by proposing an amendment condemning about a dozen previous pardons by President Clinton. When both party leaders decided not to have the Clinton vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid simply asked that the Libby vote "be vitiated and stricken from the record." Any reference to the vote was expunged as though it never happened. (MSNBC, July 20)