President Bush still has two months left before his term in office expires, two months to do the right thing, but I'm beginning to wonder whether he'll do it.
For the last two years two former Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, have been languishing in prison because they shot a notorious Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled apprehension and they then allegedly tried to cover up the shooting. For refusing to confess that they were guilty of anything more than a couple of procedural infractions they received eleven and twelve years in prison. They have been severely beaten by other inmates and have served in solitary confinement for their offense. Murderers often serve less time than they will if they serve their full term.
In any event, President Bush should pardon these men, but although he pardoned fourteen and commuted the sentences of two others just the other day, Ramos and Compean weren't among them. The men who were pardoned included drug dealers, welfare cheats, embezzlers, and thieves, but the two men who were trying to protect us from the predators who cross our borders to sell our children drugs he has as yet shown no sign of pardoning.
President Bush has eight weeks left to do for Ramos and Compean what he did for Scooter Libby. I dearly hope he does because if he doesn't it will forever diminish him in the eyes of those who have been his most constant supporters. And here's an irony: If Bush doesn't do the right thing there's a very good chance that President Obama will. His chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, co-sponsored a resolution calling for clemency for the two former agents last December when he was a member of congress. Obama could go a long way toward winning over many of those who opposed him in November by using his executive authority to pardon Ramos and Compean. It would be a shame if Bush squandered the good will he has among conservatives by failing to do this, but if Obama stepped up where Bush failed to tread it would be not only the right thing to do, it would be a stroke of political genius.
RLC
