Random Nature of Bush Pardons
By Buckland Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Looking at an AP story on Bush Presidential pardons. I guess I was struck by the randomness of the pardons.
This looks like a military offense, happening back in the Carter Administration (or even before, as the sentencing was in 1978).
The AP says that Bush grants clemency mainly to allow people who committed relatively minor offenses and long ago served their sentences to clear their names.
I don't know, maybe there is no randomness, pardons are for people who commit minor crimes against various government agencies. Military, IRS, and government housing...
The post office is a government agency, right? I was also thinking that the pardons were for residents of Red States, but NH went for Kerry this time.
Or maybe the crimes against government are the only federal minor crimes out there. Bush can't pardon state crimes, only federal ones. I guess this is the equivalent of spitting on a federal sidewalk. But the trend seems to be for minor federal offenses in red or competitive states...
I guess this qualifies, although I'm not sure how a marijuana dealer ended up in federal court way back in 1975. I thought the federalization of drug crimes came in the 1980's. But the whole red/competitive states theory is holding.
Dang it, a blue state.
I guess my issue here is the extreme randomness of the pardons. If it's a good thing to pardon 30 year old, minor, federal crimes then we should do it for all. Why this gang of 7?
My guess is none have been in trouble since, and each has a congressional sponsor that was willing to push the names up to President Bush. But most of us don't have that type of connections to get the record purged. Millions of people have been convicted of minor federal offenses over the years, but live with the criminal record.
Personally I would be for purging the records for everybody with minor offenses and a long record of law abiding behavior. But not this random picking of a few people out there in this category.
But there could be something explaining the pardons that didn't make the AP story. Maybe each made an act of self sacrifice like running into a blazing house to rescue a baby and 2 schnauzers, each gave a kidney to a total stranger, or each spends their days telling kids what it was like to watch Stanley Cup Finals. But barring a huge act of self sacrifice -- why do these 7 qualify for a pardon and no others?
Note that, per a comment below, the Scott L Sparks pardoned by the President is no relation the Jason Sparks killed in Iraq.
I am having a lot of trouble finding anything about these people or their pardons on google. Some of them have no hits at all for their name minus with and without the middle name let alone anything with bush and pardon. I guess no one really pays attention to these things or something.
Anyways, I found an article about a Jason Sparks who died in Falluja. His dad was Scott Sparks. If this is the same Scott LaVerne Sparks then it seems Bushes motive may have been based on his sons sacrifice.
If Sparks is the same person then I'm going to feel really bad about my smartaleck final paragraph.
I liked the Clinton procedure better:
- Deny you have done anything wrong.
- Have your relatives donate huge amounts of money to Clinton campaigns or FOB's.
- Deny you have done anything wrong.
- Spend Spend Spend on FOB lawyers and lobbyists.
</sarcasm>
There is only one president at a time. Not everyone can have his case pushed up to the top for review. At least these folks are not all on Laura's Christmas card list.
President Bush granted pardons to seven people Wednesday, including a man court-martialed by the Air Force in 1978. Bush has issued 46 pardons and sentence commutations during 52 months in office.
His father, former President George H.W. Bush, issued 77 pardons during his single term, from 1989 to 1993, according to statistics collected by the University of Pittsburgh law school. Former President Clinton granted clemency to 456 people during his eight years in office, including 176 on his last day at the White House.
President Clinton issued clemency to more than three times as many people in one day than President Bush has in 52 months. Man, W is one tough sunuvagun. . . ;)
Seriously though as other posters have pointed out, there is a process for petitioning for clemency and it takes time to work through the process. The President or rather his advisors are probably going through the background of these people with a fine tooth comb to make sure that years later someone who was pardoned for a minor offense by now President Bush doesn't turn out to have some other skeleton in his or her closet. Also someone who has distinguished themselves with otherwise exceptional behavior (which is hard to gauge objectively) is probably going to have a better shot.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see a large number of them issued during his final days of office and Bush doesn't strike me as the sort who would tarnish the office or his reputation by handing them out to political cronies or contributors to his campaign/presidential library.
Ken Lay is out of luck unless Robert Rubin gets elected in 2008.
I may be wrong, but I think it is doubtful Bush would have known about these, since they would hardly make the evening news.