Monday, January 19, 2009

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Hilzoy and Atrios are mulling over the paucity of pardons in the twilight of the Bush years, and in particular of his failure to pardon people from that great smorgasbord of malefactors who have served under him.

Without particularly disputing anything they say, I'd offer another insight: Bush has shown himself pretty much indifferent to the fortunes of other people period. Set aside the question of Bush team wrongdoing: there are any number of poor schmucks out there who did something ubambiguously wrong back there one day, but who got between the upper and nether millstone of a judicial system that was really more strenuous than needful. Seems to me that the system expects, indeed requires perhaps just a bit of executive discretion in precisely cases of this sort. Wouldn't have piggied my wiggy at all if Bush had done a bit more of that before he left. I suppose the upside is we've got one more reason to remember why we didn't think much of him anyway.

Clarification: And no, this time I am not talking about Michael Milken.

No comments: