Posted by
Paul Wamack on Thursday, June 05, 2008 9:48:36 AM
The conversation this morning came around to the topic of Presidential pardons. While everyone is publicly running after our two political champions, rallying to the banner of their choice, President Bush's days in the White House are dwindling to a precious few. The more the press beat him up, the more I tried to support him. But sometimes, quite independent of the positions for which he was getting pounded, sometimes he just drove me crazy. I believe that History will be far kinder to this President than the contemporary press has been, but he is not without his flaws.
The folks that hold the great databases in the sky know about me. They have my name and address. I have sent in money on several occasions, and they know it. They write to me all the time, asking for more money. I just can't get motivated at this point, although that can change in a flash of time. Both political parties are running candidates who are proud of their abilities to work with the Democrats, and no one is particularly interested in what conservative Republicans want. So it's real hard for me to reach over to my checkbook. It just seems to be a little out of reach. My chair might move at some point, my checkbook might move, or my arm might grow longer, but right now it just doesn't seem to reach.
But the discussion this morning of Presidential pardons set me on a new course of thinking. Normally, throughout the years of this custom, the police, the military, the folks that wear uniforms and badges send the President a list of folks who ran afoul of the law in some technical way while pursuing their missions of snatching babies from burning buildings. By the letter of the law, these folks had to be convicted but here is a list of folks we really wish had not been treated in this way. Historically, the President uses the last of his authority to pardon these people. To paraphrase the sainted Ronald Reagan, the President has no political future to consider.
This process usually goes by fairly quietly. Bill Clinton made the news with the massive number of criminals and drug dealers that he released in his final hours -- while his staff was taking the W's off the keyboards in the White House. And now, I understand there is a proposed list being circulated by George Bush's folks of who is under consideration for a Presidential pardon. Of course, everyone's first question is whether or not the border patrol agents are on the list. I haven't seen the list. I asked that question right away. I was told that they aren't on it, but in truth I don't know that.
But then a brilliant, if obscenely tacky, idea came to me. This idea is more vulgar than renting out the Lincoln Bedroom. Let's auction them off! Has anyone ever been touched with those "Lock-In" charity fund raisers? Local volunteers are "locked-in" to a cage of sorts, usually at the mall or some other public venue, with nothing but their cell phones and address books. If they raise a pre-set amount of money for the sponsoring charity, they are released. If the RNC wants to raise some money, I have a variation on that plan. Can't you just see it? If you want the border patrol agents released, we need to raise one million dollars for each of them, or ten million each, or whatever. Post a dossier online on each police officer, fireman, or Army interrogator -- he/she did this and this and this, the evidence was such and such, the conviction was yadda yadda, commutation and pardon of this offense will cost blank number of dollars -- call this toll free number with your credit card in hand, operators are standing by.
It's vulgar, it's gross, and I figure it ought to be a big winner. H.L.Menckin said that no one ever lost a dime underestimating the taste of the American public. The RNC could raise some really serious campaign bucks, and maybe the process of Presidential pardons can be returned to the original intent of freeing public servants who stepped over the line, not cutting loose hundreds of criminals and drug dealers. I don't really want Barabas. But I do want to see some other folks freed. And maybe I can reach my check book after all. I see potential here.