WP: President Cautious In Issuing Pardons

[kskiska]

Bush Wasting Opportunity, Critics Say

With the stroke of a pen, President Bush last week bestowed forgiveness on four people who were long ago convicted of minor crimes, spent no time in prison and completed their probations.

The presidential pardons were holiday gifts that wiped away embarrassing and possibly career-crippling criminal records while restoring the civil rights of the four recipients. But some scholars of presidential pardons were less struck by Bush's show of mercy than by his reluctance to show it by granting clemency petitions more often and in more significant cases.

"He continues not to view his role as chief executive as one where he should temper the justice handed out by the justice system with mercy," said Douglas A. Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who studies presidential pardons. "This really is a stingy view of things, especially given how much larger our federal justice system is now" than it was in years past.

Bush has issued 31 clemency orders since becoming president. His father, George H.W. Bush, granted 77 during his one term as president -- which itself was hardly a prodigious pace. Franklin D. Roosevelt granted 3,687 clemency petitions during his four terms as president.

"What President Bush has done, to my personal way of thinking, is approach the use of his pardon power with no theory other than to stay safe," said Margaret Love, a Washington lawyer who served as federal pardon attorney, heading the government's screening of clemency petitions, between 1990 and 1997.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29991-2004Dec27.html

[JohnLocke]

1. Bastard (nt)

[itzamirakul]

2. Was Ken Lay one of the pardoned...

BEFORE the fact of trial?

[eleny]

3. Maybe he's saving them up till the end of his term

Or at least nearer the end when he can also give the finger.

It's galling since his own record seems to have been expunged by powerful means.

[Fridays Child]

6. Bush knows neither mercy nor reciprocity. He knows only revenge.

He is hate-filled and hateful.

[Prodemsouth]

8. We will see but I think you are right on Target . Waiting till his term

end. Wishful thinking here- hopefully he will be forced from office by scandal or a sudden discovery by enough Americans that he is totally imcompetent. If that happens and we are lucky he will not be able to pardon anyone.

[sam sarrha]

4. well..he will have to pardon himself..tho

[Old and In the Way]

5. No pardons needed. No investigations mean no convictions.

nt

[alexisfree]

7. what an asshole!!

[GetTheRightVote]

9. I think he wants to hold it over their heads as long as he can,

Bush is just simply evil.

:kick:

[diamond14]

10. like his father's sneaky Christmas eve pardons of convicted reagunites

bush* is likely doing some sneaky ones too (that crook likely already has)....his father tried to pass this one over at Christmas eve, so as few people as possible would question it...and he got away with it....this is where criminal papa bush layed the foundations for the horrible disaster of bushII wars......

Convicted Criminal reagun's defense secretary Casper Weinberger, forgiving for running illegal guns and buying illegal drugs and trading for illegal money for hostage releases...the crimes involved MILLIONS OF DOLLARS and exposed major corruption in OUR pentagoon...



can anyone tell me who bush* (junior) pardoned?, what crime they did (I know it was mostly BANK THEFT)...how much money was stolen?....where did the money go?....and who the pardonees are connected to politically? who brought these requested pardons to bush*? .....it's amazing that all of that info has been kept off the radar screen...and now this WP piece EMPHASIZING that the bush* pardons were for really minor insignificant crimes, and the crimes happened a long long time ago, so long ago as to practically be ANCIENT...when I hear gush like that, it appears to warrant further investigation.....something SMELLS bad about these recent pardons...like father, like son.....

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich

Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich Marc Rich

Blowjob

[daleo]

12. He is saving the pardons for later

He may have to pardon plenty of friends and administration officials, so he wants to keep them in reserve - like a football coach being careful with his timeouts.

[slay]

13. What an asshole

Yet another sign that we are in serious, serious trouble as a nation. Our president is heartless, a liar, a thief, and a murderer. And that was just during his first term.

[Khephra]

14. kick

[juliagoolia]

15. who they were.

The four people granted pardons last week by Bush were convicted long ago of relatively minor offenses. They are Ronald William Cauley, a Rhode Island man sentenced in 1980 to one year's probation for misapplication of bank funds; Kristan Diane Bullock Atkins, a North Carolina woman sentenced in 1990 to three years' probation, 100 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine for embezzlement; Roger Charles Weber, a California man who served two years' probation and paid a $200 fine after a 1969 conviction for stealing $32 worth of eight-track audiotapes; and Stephen Davis Simmons, a Texas man sentenced in 1981 to five years' probation and a $2,000 fine on counterfeiting charges

[knitter4democracy]

16. No jail time, I see

Why pardon white collar criminals who've done no jail time? I seriously doubt their lives ended with their convictions the way it does for so many others. It does make you wonder what the hell our media is good for if they aren't all over this story . . .

[Supersedeas]

17. Texas Bankers to the top of the list...short list...so be it.