CSotD: The Pardoner’s Tale
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Tough decision where to start today, but I think Ben Jennings has the best viewpoint, which is shame on the process and shame on those who utilize it.
But it’s not a “both sides” argument, because, even in Jennings’ parallel construction, Biden looks downcast and Trump appears arrogant. Granted, part of that could be because Trump is suddenly getting a whole lot of mileage over Biden’s change of plans.
However, the fact remains that it’s possible to distinguish between their actions, just as it’s possible to distinguish between the objects of their pardons.
Everybody seems to have an opinion on this and I’m no different.
Neither should you be.
My opinion is based largely on Obama’s principle that “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Rejecting a good solution because it’s not perfect leaves a bad situation untouched, and it’s particularly not-okay because I don’t believe in perfection.
If someone offers you a horse, don’t turn it down because you’d rather have a unicorn.
Dave Granlund is not the only one blaming Biden for going back on his pledge. It’s true that Biden had said, more than once, that he had no intention of pardoning his son.
But when did he say it, and what has happened since?
Let’s say I give my kids permission to go play outside, but after they’ve been out there for awhile, the tornado sirens go off. Am I breaking my word, if I call them back in?
Well, sure, yes, of course. And I’d be an idiot not to. And they’d be idiots to hold it against me.
Randy Bish can hear the sirens. We’ve always known that the MAGAts were obsessed with prosecuting Hunter Biden and “the Biden Crime Family,” even though they have never come up with a shred of actual evidence.
They were operating under the rule of law, however, so for all the guessing and presuming and in some cases actual, deliberate lying, they were still required to prove the charges and they couldn’t.
But things have changed. Clay Jones calls the pardon wise planning, and backs up Biden’s wisdom with a strong essay.
The incoming president wants to put Kash Patel in charge of the FBI, and if that doesn’t change things, you’d probably let your kids play while the funnel cloud bears down.
Read what Ron Filipkowski has to say, after tracking the rightwing for the past four years. Here’s his explanation of what made Biden change course:
Trump’s appointment of Patel, who has ranted and raved for the past four years on every right-wing podcast in America that he was going to get Hunter Biden for things he has never been prosecuted for. Joe takes that threat seriously. Apparently, the critics either do not, or are ignorant and unaware of exactly who Patel is and what he has pledged to do specific to Hunter.
Here’s exactly who Kash Patel is.
And here’s who else likes him.
I’ll let Dana Summers (Tribune) represent the conservatives who have posted celebrations without context.
My disbelief in perfection began sophomore year, when we read Anselm’s proof for the existence of God, which is that, because we can imagine the concept of complete greatness, something must be greatest of all, and that would be God.
It’s not a great proof of God’s existence but it’s a great example of the reasoning which obtained in the Dark Ages: Scholars sought ways to prove what they already believed, rather than examining the evidence to discover what is true.
And it’s not as if the Enlightenment changed that. We’ve still got plenty of people who decide what they believe and then, like Cinderella’s stepsisters, hack off their toes to try to make the slipper fit.
Only now they’ve got a president who is stocking his cabinet with unqualified toadies and extremists, bent on making the slipper fit regardless of how much blood may stain the floors in the process.
Bill Bramhall frets that the pardon will undermine people’s trust in government, but I thought the most recent elections, and the four to eight years that preceded them, were ample proof of the large number of people who already have no trust in the government.
To quote Dylan, “You say you’ve lost your faith, but that’s not where it’s at. You had no faith to lose, and you know it.”
Well, maybe you don’t know it.
Walt Handelsman depicts a pair of Democrats aghast that Biden has shifted his viewpoint with the shifting events.
Golly, I hope they didn’t want him to shift his viewpoint on Gaza. That would be another case of breaking his word, and once you give your word, that’s it. Anything else is shameful.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis — a Democrat — is shocked by the whole thing and afraid it will set a bad precedent such that future presidents may also start pardoning people who don’t deserve it.
He would prefer a Lucius Junius Brutus, a pater familias who executed his sons, though it was because they were planning to overthrow the government, not because they neglected their taxes and illegally owned swords for a few days without using them.
It’s possible he didn’t exist, but that’s not the point.
Actually, the point is amusingly explained by Jeff Tiedrich here, but brace yourself for some exasperated profanity.
I think we need to do a better job of exporting news to Great Britain, because Patrick Blower offers this mystifying look at things.
Is Blower saying that failing to pay taxes and lying about your drug use is the equivalent of assaulting police and attempting — like Lucius Junius Brutus’s sons — to overthrow the government?
Is he unaware that Trump has already suggested that he plans to pardon the Jan 6 insurrectionists?
Because if he and Polis are afraid of a precedent being set, that train left the station long ago.
Here’s a list of Trump pardons from the last time around and you’d better read it now because who knows how much government information will be publicly available in six weeks?
Rob Rogers makes the relevant point. Just when you think things couldn’t sink deeper into hypocrisy …
… oh, wait: John McCain’s daughter wants to leave us laughing …
I’m surprised typing “nepo baby” didn’t make her head explode, because reading it sure made mine.
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