Abu Wabu

Barack Obama, Tuesday July 20:

I think all of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed, and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and my administration expressed very clearly our objections. Prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made.

The Australian, July 26:

The US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be 'far preferable' to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison. The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer. The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were 'surprised, disappointed and angry' to learn of Megrahi's release. Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as 'half-hearted' and a sign it would be accepted.

Let's look at a letter written last August by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who sharply criticized Scotland's justice minister for releasing the Lockerbie bomber, an act that "gives comfort to terrorists" all over the world:

The angry tone of the letter is out of character with the normally reserved Mueller, indicating his outrage is personal as well as professional. He also sent copies to the families of the Lockerbie victims.

"I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors," Mueller wrote. "Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law. ... And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of 'compassion.'"

Before he became FBI director, Mueller spent years as a Justice Department lawyer leading the investigation into the 1988 airplane bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

Mueller said Thursday's release was "as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law."

...He ended the Lockerbie letter with a frustrated question: "Where, I ask, is the justice?"

I wonder how Director Mueller feels about his boss today? Did he have any knowledge of Obama's duplicity when he wrote that letter, or is the revelation of Obama's role in freeing the Lockerbie Islamist Bomber new to him?