George W. Bush today commuted the sentences of two former Texas border guards who had been convicted of shooting a fleeing (but apparently unarmed) drug smuggler in the ass and then covering-up the shooting. If you try to read up on the history of this case, you can give yourself quite a headache, as the "facts" presented in the press seem at odds with the facts (no quotes) presented in the trial. The two border guards became hero-martyrs to the anti-immigration crowd, many of whom don't think officials should ever be faulted for violence against illegals, especially illegals who smuggle drugs. I don't really have an opinion on the case except to say that if you study the accounts of it, it's obvious a lot of folks on both sides are just making things up.
Of more interest to me is a line in the Associated Press report that says "Bush technically has until noon on Tuesday when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office to exercise his executive pardon authority, but presidential advisers said no more were forthcoming." I hope that's so. If it is, I apologize for my suspicion that Bush wouldn't vacate the premises without a raft of pardons designed to protect him and his crew from prosecution for things like war crimes, war profiteering, civil rights violations and so on. I thought he'd do what his father did, issuing pardons to kill any further exploration of Iran-Contra criminality within that administration.
So then the question is, assuming he's not doing that, is he not doing it because he's convinced no one did anything wrong? Or he's convinced they've destroyed enough evidence? Or does he have some assurance from Obama that this won't happen? It sure wouldn't sit well with some people if our new Attorney General could admit that waterboarding is torture, and then decide to look the other way over the fact that it was done and admitted. And there are other offenses besides that…