I Beg Your Pardon: Who Will Bush Let Off the Hook?
What do you think?
Attention, convicts: Time is running out to get applications into the pardon attorney at the Justice Department if you’re hoping that President Bush will be your decider. Few of you should get your hopes up — Bush has rejected a record number of requests for pardons and commutations. In the last eight years, he has pardoned 157 people — a miserly sum compared to his predecessors. But you don’t have to give up entirely: More are expected in the coming months, most notably for Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
Before President Clinton went on a pardon spree for wealthy friends and campaign contributors at the end of his presidency, pardons and commutations were traditionally bestowed on average citizens who had successfully reformed their lives and given back to their communities after completing lengthy sentences. Pardon experts believe that of the Bush prospects, the 1980s junk-bond king Michael Milken best fits the rich-and-famous description.
Most of the other top prospects for pardon listed below have, like Milken, been convicted and served prison time. But not all. People who are merely charged could be eligible for pardons, as Bush’s father demonstrated when he pardoned former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger. And Washington is abuzz with the prospect that Bush might issue pre-emptive pardons for government employees who could face trouble in the future stemming from their roles in his “war on terror.”
We’ve rated potential pardonees’ chances from zero to four “Get of Jail Free” cards.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Bush won’t pardon the #2 man on the FBI Most Wanted list like his predecessor.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Meanwhile Compean and Ramos (2 hispanic A-MER-I-CANS) continue to rot away in prison. And the “poor victim” Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila was subsequently arrested with a second load of Marijuana. Yeah. We know what you neocons are all about. It’s a bunch of sickos. That’s what they’re about.
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Compean & Ramos deserve a pardon. Maybe President Bush should include Sandy Berger. Oh, forget that, he already got away with treason, being the good Democrat that he is.
To quote good old Willaima Ayers, Guilty as sin, free as a bird! What a country!
You have two years to get involved with some independent candidates for congress who might actually stand up for America and the Constitution. You certainly won’t get any Dems or GOPers to fit that mold.