Pardon Me

Recently, President Barack Obama granted 9 pardons. These were the first of his presidency making him the second slowest president to issue pardons. However, the time the president took to use one of his greatest powers in office was not the point of criticism, but rather, the mere offenses he pardoned were the larger issue. An article in the Huffington Post, states that Obama has granted 9 out of 140 pardon requests and 0 for 1,157 commutation requests. Furthermore, not only has the president been reluctant to use his pardon power, but the 9 times he did use it were only to pardon minor offenses such as drug possession and mutilation of coins. Most of the crimes took place years and decades ago and moreover, 6 of the 9 people pardoned had not even gone to jail and the other 3 served very little time.

In a government where the President’s power is very limited on the domestic level to powers such as vetoes, executive orders, pardons, etc., shouldn’t President Obama be flexing his muscles a bit more while in office by using these powers more often. As a law school graduate from Harvard and the President of the Harvard Law Review, many would think that Obama would use his pardoning power to make a strong statement about some of the problems in the criminal justice system today.

Why did he wait so long to make a move? Well, after taking office with a bag of Former President Bush’s economic problems, his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the health care problem, President Obama had a lot more on his plate. Because the pardoning power is one Obama can exercise at anytime without having to deal with other branches or agencies in the government, he made sure to put health care, the economy, and the wars first on his agenda. This was the platform he ran on when Americans voted retrospectively in the election following their experiences with a republican President for 8 years. The people proved they wanted change on these particular issues. Furthermore, to have legislation passed on these major issues would be easier with the Democratic Party in control of both houses in congress. Obama has been in a race against time, and he managed to pass major legislation such as the Health Care Bill with the Democratic congress knowing that a republican takeover somewhere in congress was inevitable. However, he managed to beat the clock then, and he managed to beat the clock with his pardons by not being the slowest President to issue them. President George W. Bush wins that trophy.

By making sure to make safe selections and to pardon those who had only committed small crimes, Obama avoided a rather bold move which would attract more attention. Although, it seems this strategy to please the crowd may have backfired as he continues to get hammered with the criticism for being too timid to take a stand. C’mon people! Give the man a break. He pardoned four possibly very dangerous and high level criminals in addition to these 9 pardons… his Thanksgiving turkeys...