Ah, it brings me back to the heady days of Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton (D-Yes) and all the jokes that used to fly round, even round the elementary school I attended at the time. Political cartoons of Blanton with the caption, Pardon Me Guv'ner! And people singing Pardon me, Ray, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo!
Woo! Woo!
Those were the days. Lamar! being sworn in three days early to stop Ray's orgy of pardons. Fred Thompson, fresh out of Watergate fame, launching his film career, which reached its memorable peak in The Hunt for Red October when he uttered these immortal words, "A Rooskie don't take a dump without a plan, son." Or something to that effect. I forget.
Jack Balkin at Blakinization is reminding us that PResidente Arbusto still holds an ace in the hole. No, not Jeff Gannon. The power of the pardon. Shall I remind you once again how it is used?
Yes, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree. Bush probably wishes he was at the end of his term rather than the beginning, as it would make things so much easier. To pardon treason is always a tricky thing, but even more so before the mid-term elections. If it is apparent that Cheney, Rove, and the others are more than guilty of crimes against the state, and Bush pardons them now, he might as well kiss Congress goodbye in 2006. And if he does that, he might as well resign now, because he'll be impeached in 2007.
See, there's just too much else out there. Fitzgerald's investigation is only lipstick on the collar. Wait until we find the Kroger bag full of used rubbers in the trunk and the credit card receipts from the S&M store. Give Congress an outraged populace hungering for blood and they'll be investigating every thing Bush has ever done, every paper he has ever signed, every person he has ever demeaned and every country he has ever wiped his ass upon. More than likely, there are plenty of examples of his fracturing the law in one way or another, and all it will need is someone looking for it. They won't have to look far, either.
So, Bush can pardon his friends now, and then pardon a few more tomorrow, and a few more tomorrow, until sooner or later he won't have a friend left who doesn't have a presidential pardon somewhere in his (or her) resume. But sooner or later his chickens will come home to shit in his bed and lay eggs in his shoes and erase his TiVo library and the 15 Gigs of porn his has stored on his laptop.
He's in a no-win scenario. Maybe, like Admiral James T. Kirk, he doesn't believe there is a no-win scenario, but there's no morally-pure kamikaze Vulcan out there to save his bacon. If Fitzgerald indicts his friends and relations, he's going to have to testify under oath at some point without Uncle Dick pulling his string. The Supreme Court already made sure that a sitting president could be forced to testify under oath with Clinton. I bet now they wish they had saved their shells for bigger game.
But it truly is a no-win. He can pardon everybody today, lose Congress and get impeached. Or he can not pardon them, let the case go to court, be forced to lie under oath, lose Congress and get impeached.
So if I were Bush, I'd pardon Dick, then resign and let Dick pardon me. Then I'd move the family and Jeff Gannon to Dubai and spend the rest of my days living off oil revenue and bearer bonds while dining on Persian Gulf oysters. Let Denny Hastert dry hump Iraq and the dead economy for the next three years.
But then again, can you really trust Dick, once he's president and carrying a presidential pardon, to pardon you in return?
I'll do you and you do me, ok? Unka Dick?
Yeah, sure kid, whatever you say. Just like old times.
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