Scooter Told To Go To Jail / Right-Wingers Harass Judge

The judge in the Libby trial ruled today that Scooter Libby can't delay his 2 1/2-year prison sentence while the case is on appeal. That means that Libby will have to beg the President for a pardon ASAP report to prison in the next month or two. Libby's new lawyers intend to seek an emergency order delaying the sentence. Emergency = Scootie doesn't wanna to go to jail!!

It is on this note that I read a separate report that this judge had been the subject of harassment prior to this decision, by fans of Scootie-

A federal judge showed no sign that he would delay I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term in the CIA leak case Thursday — even as he reported getting threatening letters and phone calls after sentencing the former White House aide.

"I received a number of angry, harassing, mean-spirited phone calls and letters," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said. "Some of those were wishing bad things on me and my family."...

This is, of course, nothing new. The Bush cultists who make up the party base (though that's becoming less the case in recent weeks because of his support for immigrants) have always been taught to regard an independent judiciary as an enemy.

The most famous example of this was the harassment and threatening of the judge who ruled in the husband's favor in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. Conservatives were lead in this 'fight' by then-House majority leader Tom Delay, who said "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." And when President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, it was not her subservience to the President that bothered them, but rather fears that she was merely moderately conservative.

Considering that, among many other things, the Schiavo debacle was mentioned by many people as a key cause of the conservative downfall heading into 2006, you'd think the party/movement leadership would've learned some lessons and made efforts to de-crazify the base. Instead, they're waiting to be pacified with a Libby pardon.

Want to take bets on whether it's coming? I'm offering no predictions here.