To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
And this is bad... why?
President Bush "only" granted 31 pardons and sentence commutations during his first term as president. The AP report makes that sound like a bad thing. It's not.
If you do the crime, you should pay for it. That's the message the President has sent with his lack of pardons. And I like it.
Most presidents since the beginning of the 20th century have granted hundreds if not thousands of pardons and sentence commutations, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 3,687 over four terms. Only two presidents never used their constitutional authority to grant clemency: 19th century chief executives James Garfield (who held office less than a year before he was assassinated - ed.) and William H. Harrison (who passed away less than a month after taking office- ed.).I'm guessing that only 31 requests met his strict criteria for pardon/commutation (which, while I don't know for sure, probably involves proof of innocence and/or information not available at the time of trial.) He's not the kind of man to use his power for personal gain. No matter what the Left thinks of him, he's not that kind of man.
If you do the crime, you should pay for it. That's the message the President has sent with his lack of pardons. And I like it.
