Nothing bugs me quite as much as false equivalence, and I’ve been seeing quite a bit of it comparing Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons and those Donald Trump issued the moment he took office. So I compared them and wrote about it at New York:
In trying to sort through all the momentous events marking the transition from the 46th presidency to the 47th, it’s tempting to turn the actions of Joe Biden and Donald Trump into matched sets. In some cases, that’s justifiable; Biden reversed quite a few Trump policies by executive order when he took office in 2017, and in some cases Trump is reversing the reversals right now (e.g., on withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords). But sometimes the comparisons are of apples and oranges at best. Some commentators lumped together Biden’s and Trump’s transition-week pardons as two sides of the same dubious coin of sovereign clemency powers. Here’s Politico Playbook’s take, from its new British editor Jack Blanchard:
“The biggest story of the night … was Trump’s extraordinary tidal wave of clemency, with the new president issuing pardons or commutations for nearly every person convicted of crimes — including serious violence — in the January 6 Capitol insurrection. This was big — about as big as Trump could possibly go. Only hours earlier Biden, of course, had issued his own shocking flurry of preemptive pardons for friends, family, and associates during his final morning — his final moments — in power. It probably shouldn’t take a Brit to tell you that none of this is remotely normal. At all.”
So Biden’s “shocking flurry” of pardons was matched by Trump’s “extraordinary tidal wave.” Thrust, then counter-thrust, an action with a reaction, right? No, actually, that’s wrong.
Biden’s last-minute pardons were legally controversial in that they were preemptive, offering protection to potential Trump-administration targets who have not been indicted, much less convicted, of criminal wrongdoing, as CNN reports:
“Clemency for General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members of Congress who served on the committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, was announced early Monday morning. Later, minutes before Trump was to be inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president, Biden also issued pardons for members of his family: his brothers James and Frank, his sister Valerie, and their respective spouses.
“The pardons, coming in the final hours of Biden’s presidency, amount to a stunning flex of presidential power that is unprecedented in recent presidential history. They serve to protect several outspoken critics of the incoming president, including former Republican representative Liz Cheney, whom Trump has vowed retribution against.”
Trump, by contrast, moved to protect over 1,500 people who most definitely have been indicted, tried, and convicted of criminal wrongdoing in connection with the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as the Associated Press reported:
“President Donald Trump has pardoned, commuted the prison sentences, or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers, using his clemency powers on his first day back in office to undo the massive prosecution of the unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.
“Trump’s action, just hours after his return to the White House on Monday, paves the way for the release from prison of people found guilty of violent attacks on police, as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of failed plots to keep the Republican in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.”
There was a preemptive aspect to Trump’s exercise in clemency, too: “Trump also ordered the attorney general to seek the dismissal of roughly 450 cases that are pending before judges stemming from the largest investigation in Justice Department history.”
In general, though, Biden pardoned people who as far as we know haven’t committed crimes (in this last-minute wave, that is; an earlier pardon for convicted felon Hunter Biden is a different matter). Biden’s list was comprised of people Trump targeted by name for investigation and prosecution during his 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, Trump opened the prison doors and expunged the record for insurrectionists who (whatever you think of them and their actions) did enjoy due process in facing accountability for the events of January 6 (unlike Trump himself, who was protected from prosecution by the U.S. Supreme Court).
The 47th president may understandably rage that the 46th has kept him from embarking on the full vengeance tour he seemed to contemplate in calling for a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family, and in describing members of the January 6 investigative committee as traitors. But the idea that Biden’s pardons were as audacious as Trump’s is itself pretty audacious.
What I really want to hear is that Bush’s intensive negative ad campaign ($6 million?) in the swing states is not working. Then I think we will know his goose is cooked. I have heard that the 527 campaigns plus Kerry are matching the Bush effort.
What a relief. Why is it that the political coloration of the organizations sponsoring or conducting the polls (NBC, WSJ, Fox) always seems to result in bias? How do their subjective wishes seem to get into the polls?
Here’s the commercial that will win the election (based on real footage, I’ve seen it):
Video:
Bush sitting at Booker Elementary on Sept. 11, 2001
VO:
On September 11th 2001, President Bush was in Florida at the Booker Elementary school for a planned photo op. By the time he arrived he already knew the first tower of the World Trade Center had been attacked. He proceeded with the photo op. In this unedited footage you can see the moment Andrew Card, his chief of staff notifies the President of the second attack.
Video:
Card leans in to whisper to Bush
VO:
Card is quoted as saying, ”
A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack”
Watch the President’s reaction.
(key over the video) HE KNOWS
VO:
The president went on with the photo op for a minimum of another 9 minutes (some witnesses say as long as twenty minutes), asking no questions, not acting, not responding to the crisis. At the same time Vice President Cheney was taken to a secure location. Weren’t the children potentially at risk? Wasn’t the president a target?
Would YOU call this steady leadership?
________________________
If you’d like to see the actual raw footage of Bush at Booker the file is large..25 megs…
but it can be downloaded here
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/bushbook.mov
I took at look at the ARG poll, and I was fascinated by two of the findings: first, that Bush’s support among REPUBLICANS is softening. 17 percent of Republicans polled disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy. Double-digit disapproval among Republicans on the economy cannot be spun into good news for Bush; second, among Independents, Nader actually draws support away from BUSH! I think that if Kerry can avoid a major, and I mean major scandal, he’s in an extraordinarily strong position to take the White House in November.
C. Ama
This may be slightly off on a tangent, but it is very timely given the recent events in Madrid. I am wondering about Bush’s consistently favorable ratings regarding “fighting terrorism” and his continual lead over Kerry regarding his ability to combat terrorism. I have heard repeatedly that a new terrorist attack could be an “external event” that would send people scurrying back to Bush, because of their confidence in his ability to fight it.
But it seems to me that another terrorist attack, particularly of the kind that we saw in Madrid (where two previously distinct terrorist groups may be acting together) is very strong evidence that Bush is not winning the war on terrorism. He is using poor judgment, his ideological bent is causing us to approach the matter incorrectly and his domestic “starve the beast” plan is limiting our ability to execute the war properly. I realize this is all speculation, but at what point do we believe that the public will turn on W on this issue (like they have all the others) and realize that he is botching this one too?
The thing I find most interesting here is the rumblings of discontent among Republicans about the economy and jobs. It would be interesting to see how this correlates with household income — my guess is that the discontent among Republicans is mainly among people of average-to-below-average income, who are beginning to figure out that, while they may be in line with Bush’s social conservatism, their economic interests aren’t being well served by the Bush administration.
Greg