I Beg Your Pardon?

James Clyburn has to go.

 

Yes, he's a veteran of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, he's been a capable legislator in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he's been Joe Biden's right-hand man, as well as one of Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenants, but with Biden on his way out and Pelosi no longer Speaker or House Democratic leader (aside: best wishes to Nancy Pelosi for a speedy recovery from her fall), the days of Clyburn's own political relevance are numbered, and the number is very low.  It wouldn't be as low as it is but for all of the trouble he's caused.

What trouble?  Well, when Clyburn backed President Biden's bid for re-election even when more and more Democrats called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 campaign, he added that it was only logical that Kamala Harris become the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee if Biden did step down because there was no way that Democrats could deny the nomination to the highest-ranking black woman in the federal government and insult black women, the most loyal base of the Democratic Party, and that she should be not only the first choice to replace Biden but the only choice.

Yeah, that worked out just fine.  

But it gets worse.  Now that Harris is a hasbeen (see my blog entry on that here),  Clyburn has suggested that, to clear the air after a toxic presidential campaign and eight years of tumult, perhaps President Biden should pardon Trump.

Pardon Trump?  Pardon me???

This is what happens when a member of the gerontocracy that runs the Democratic Party skips his meds for a day.

At least Biden is stepping down.  Why are Clyburn and Pelosi still in Congress?  

Pardon Me

The Democrats ran a female presidential candidate and lost.  Ironically, they've surrendered their cojónes to Donald Trump.

The Democrats have already expressed a willingness to work with Trump and his henchmen in trying to "reform" government and support "populist" policies in an effort to entrap Trump into making promises he won't keep, even though he'll find a way to deflect blame to others when he doesn't.  But no capitulation to MAGA morons is more blatant than Democratic opposition to President Biden's pardon of his son Hunter of charges of tax evasion and an illegal gun purchase.

Democratic senators such as Michael Bennet of Colorado and Chris Murphy of Connecticut have criticized the pardon as undermining President Biden's own insistence that no one is above the law, which will encourage Donald Trump to put himself above the law once he returns to power - as if he hadn't been planning to do that anyway.  The faux outage among the mainstream media - "Oh, I'm shocked - I'm shocked that the President pardoned his own son! - was just as insufferable,  with the New York Times, MSNBC, and Politico (Round up the usual suspects!)  all declaring Biden's pardon of his son a betrayal of a promise he'd made not to do so that could encourage Trump to pardon January 6 insurrectionists (which Trump had already promised he'd do, and that's a promise he can be counted on to keep!).  Spare me the terminal righteousness.

Let's review.  Hunter Biden was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm and was expected to receive a stiff sentence that - I reiterate - he would likely not receive if his name were Robert Hunter, not Robert Hunter Biden.  He was expected to be sentenced to prison for up to seventeen years for tax evasion, an offense that - again - he would see little or no jail time for if his name were Robert Hunter.  And he was expected to receive this sentence despite having paid his back taxes with the help of a friend.

So why did President Biden change his mind?  Because Kamala Harris lost the election.  And it became apparent that Trump would install Kash Patel as FBI director - with Patel promising to make Trump's detractors and Biden's relatives pay for their obstinance to Trump.  Hunter would have continued to be harassed not just for the gun and drug charges but for accusations of his dealings with Burisma in Ukraine, a web of innuendo in yo' window so tangled I don't want to revisit it here.  The pardon protects Hunter from prosecution and persecution from any and all crimes Hunter Biden committed or may have committed in the past decade, and as long as he keeps his nose clean (no pun intended on his addiction, he's been clean and sober for years),  Patel can't lay a glove on him.    

And given the number of people Trump pardoned - including Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and too many more to list - Democrats and Republicans have a lot of damn gall to complain about Joe Biden reversing course and pardoning his own son.

Pardonez Ma Affaire

Fifty years ago today, President Gerald R. Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for crimes he committed or may have committed during this five-and-a-half-year Presidency. 

Once reviled by the nation, this decision to pardon Nixon was meant to heal the country after nearly a decade of acrimonious tumult over Vietnam and especially Watergate, but many Americans would come to believe that it was the right thing to do because it spared the U.S. a divisive trial of a former President that would have exacerbated the raw feelings over the scandals of the Nixon administration and precented the country from dealing with the sputtering economy and an oil shortage.  Ford would even receive a Profile In Courage award from the John F. Kennedy Library for issuing the pardon, aware that his decision would cost him his bid for a full presidential term in his own right in the 1976 election.   

Now, however, the pendulum has swung back.  Many people now believe that a trial of Richard Nixon was necessary to make it clear once and for all that a President is not above the law.  But the pardon not only let Nixon off the hook for crimes he committed or may have committed, it paved the way for a future President to do something criminal and claim the right to do it ("If the President does it, it's not illegal - Richard Nixon).  Taking note of the Ford pardon of Nixon in 1974 was a 28-year-old hotshot real estate hustler from Queens named Donald J. Trump.

Trump has managed to convince nearly half the country - including six Supreme Court justices - that he should have immunity for official acts, and he now plans for a second administration in which he aims to do anything, no matter how illegal, to stay in power, enrich himself from his office, and silence dissenters who call him on it.

And he'll get away with it.

The United States sucks big at time at holding Presidents to account for high crimes and misdemeanors, and the justice system has allowed Trump to get away with everything he's already done - even his sentencing on the hush money case has been pushed back to after the election.  The mainstream media also suck in holding Trump to account for his carious offenses and also for his promises to rule as a dictator - "Oh, its just Trump being Trump" - because Trump stories have become mere entertainments like the latest Cardi B "music" video or some godawful teen flick whose title ends in a numeral.  If we don't hold Trump to account at the ballot box, he'll be President again and amuse us to death.

Gerald R. Ford's decision to pardon Nixon now looks as wrongheaded as it did in 1974.   Our long national nightmare was only just beginning.