Presidential Pardon Season

KT
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I thought you were striclty a CNN pundit. LOL Nice appearance today on MSNBC

Re: Milken -- Yes, now is the perfect time to pardon the founding father of cotton candy securitization and speculative gluttony. The right message for the times! What America needs right now is to pardon Scrooge. That's more like it. That penny-pinching sunovabitch is having the last laugh on us.

Yes, but this would require Bush to be reflective and he has already told us that he is uncomfortable with rethinking past decisions, apparently he was not only talking about his own.

By the way re: Bush not using the pardons more. I think he was just saving them all up for the end of his term when he couldn't be criticized for them. Contrary to popular belief he seems to care almost TOO MUCH how the country sees him and he knew he would take a hit on some of the pardons he is sure to hand down. I will start the list of the most obvious pardons he will likely hand out
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Himself (whether its legal or not)
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Dick Cheney
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Scooter Libby
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Ted Stevens
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Al Gonzales
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Henry Paulson

"She made an interesting case that Bush should actually be using that power much more than he has"
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Maybe Ms. Love should Bush's record.
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Anybody check Bush's clemency record when he was governor of Texas. Nobody remembers that Gonzales gave him almost no info on clemency cases because Bush didn't want it. No one remembers him laughing at a death row inmate begging for her life.

Someone please remind me why the President has the power to pardon someone convicted of a crime in a court of law? I'm just wondering.

queencersei -- it's a check on the power of the Judicial and Legislative branches.
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However, it's been dead politically ever since the "War on Crime", especially the Willie Horton ad.

Slate has a list of suspects and their probabilities.
http://www.slate.com/id/2204984/
Scooter Libby gets a You Betcha!

This is simply a time-honored tradition that every president partakes in. Bush just happens to know a lot of criminals...

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Re: Milken -- Now is not the time to pardon the founding father of cotton candy securitization and speculative gluttony. It would be like awarding George Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom or something like that.

Duke Cunningham thinks he deserves a pardon? good grief - talk about chuzzpah.
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I fully expect him to pardon Gonzo and Scooter as well.

pourme wins the before noon section of this thread for excellent snarkiness

Re: Milken -- Now is not the time to pardon the founding father of cotton candy securitization and speculative gluttony.
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Probably not. But at least Milken served his time and has done something constructive since leaving prison. And he's shown remorse, which is more than I can say for most of the people on the list.

I don't know what you are talking about. They are all sorry they got caught.

Talk about your under reported stories of our time
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President George H.W. Bush, for example, granted pardons to officials involved in the Iran-contra scandal. Only a week before former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger was scheduled to face trial, in a document dated Christmas Eve, the president pardoned Weinberger and several associates, including Robert C. McFarlane and Clair E. George.

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Lawyer Robert S. Bennett, who defended Weinberger, said in an interview that he laid the groundwork for a pardon nearly a year in advance. He identified intermediaries to gauge the reaction of then-House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), consulted with other lawmakers and arranged newspaper opinion pieces. Only weeks before the award, White House officials asked Bennett to complete the pardon paperwork even though Weinberger had not been tried.

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"I was the orchestra leader," Bennett said. "Then you've got to get important players to play the instruments."

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In the Lee Atwater movie Terry McCauliffe says that George H W Bush HAD to win the presidential election otherwise he and every other official in the Reagan administration was going to jail. He aint never lied!

Since Barack has nominated Mr. Holder, I fully expect we will hear all about the Mark Rich fiasco until we want to puke. But once Dubya starts doing his thing the Rich pardon will look like child's play.

I remember reading somewhere that Weinberger deserved a pardon, and being persuaded. I know that's lame without a citation, but I recall a pretty persuasive case being made.

KT
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Evidently thats the question of the next few months because people in the media are playing up this story about Bush issuing blanket pardons for people in the administration who might have been involved with torture. I honestly don't think anyone knows whether he can or can't definitively but I did hear over the weekend someone try to justify the notion that he can based on Jimmy Carter pardoning Vietnam soldiers of crimes they hadn't been charged with yet.

KT - I don't think so.

Wait, so Love is saying that in order to uphold any semblance of justice in our nation, Bush has to pardon the criminals that have dismantled our government?
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We're not talking about Tyrone sitting in prison for crack cocaine here. We're talking about rich white men who will do anything to get richer.
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In short, I am not buying what Margaret Colgate Love is selling.

Ask Richard Nixon, KT.

No pardon for the Duke! I used to live in his congressional district, he doesn't deserve a pardon.

pourme
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Check out Clinton's quote about the Weinberger pardon. Came back to bite him in the arse didnt it?
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http://www.fas.org/news/iran/1992/921224-260039.htm

--Can you pardon someone when they haven't been indicted?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081023115150AApcHVR

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Yes. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon before he was indicted on any charges