I've written about this before, and even got Kevin Drum from the Washington Monthly to weigh in on it. I'm of the opinion that presidential pardons are basically bullshit. Simply put, either our criminal justice system works, or we need to fix it.
That said, I don't think our criminal justice system works. But I also don't think that the solution is to give the power of the pardon (or commutation, as the case may be) to a politician.
Do I think Scooter Libby should be in jail? Yes, I do. He lied, and obstructed an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA agent. One that was working on Iraqi and Irani weapons of mass destruction, no less. David Brooks can call me a howler. I don't care. He is an asshole. And a moron. The investigation was non-partisan. His outrage is partisan.
How many people have we executed in this country? People who were minors when they commited their crimes? People whose lawyers literally slept in the courtroom while their cases were being tried? People who were retarded? People who were completely innocent of the crime for which they were accused?
(For the record, I am an athiest who is against the death penalty. Any Christian who is for the death penalty isn't a real Christian, in my opinion.)
And how many people on death row did W pardon while he was governor of Texas? (Hint: you don't need more than one finger to help you count.)
But this post isn't about the death penalty. It's about the presidential pardon, and why we bestow such kingly powers on a (supposedly) democratically elected official. I found a great resource of information about presidential pardons at the Pittsburgh School of Law web site. They answer a lot of questions, and also provide a very handy chart that gives an excellent perspective on how many pardons previous presidents have given. (Truman gave out over 2000! Ike more than 1100!) They also answered my question as to why our founding fathers gave such superpowers to one mortal man...
At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the Framers appear to have accepted the argument that the prerogative of mercy, upon which the pardon power is based, is most efficiently and equitably exercised by a single individual, as opposed to a body of legislators or judges. In Federalist No. 74, supporting the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote:
Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed...As the sense of responsibility is always strongest in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives, which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations, which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance...On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of the government than a body of men.
That's a pretty good explanation! I still think it's bullshit, but at least they made the effort. Kudos!
Why was Scooter Libby pardoned? I certainly can't say. There are only a handful of people who can answer that question with any degree of certainty, and NONE of them work for any media outlet. None of them write op-eds, and none of them host a radio or television show.
Should he have been pardoned? No. I think I can safely say, that's bullshit.
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