Word: pardoners
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...characters were in place. The topic was right. It was the story of a Bush, a Caspar and a pardon. But as I read the page one article, I quickly realized that something was missing. The roles had been reversed. Jonathan J. Pollard was still in jail...
Pollard, you may wonder. Is he one of the other Iran-Contra hoods whom Bush let off the hook? Sorry. My take on the whole pardon thing is a bit different than the others that have graced this page in the last two weeks. I'm less concerned about guys like Lawrence Walsh and Robert MacFarlane than about a Jewish man named Pollard marking time in a federal penitentiary. Since Casper W. Weinberger '38 helped secure a term of life imprisonment for Pollard, only Bush could have ended his excessive punishment by granting Pollard a pardon. But Bush let Weinberger...
Those involved with the Pollard affair had suspicions that Bush, in a bid to woo Jewish voters, would pardon the spy toward the end of the presidential campaign. But, as Secretary of State-turned Chief of Staff James Baker put it so bluntly in a White House meeting, Jews were not among the GOP's top concerns on Election Day. (Quite frankly, American Jews--more than 80% of whom voted for Bill Clinton--did not want four more years of Bush and his Israel-squeezing sidekick, anyway.) Bush remained firm and instead pardoned a man who helped to orchestrate Pollard...
Once in office, Clinton, as a gesture of goodwill to the Jewish community in which he enjoys such wide support, should issue a pardon on behalf of Jonathan Pollard. Bush intervened to assist Weinberger--a man who called for undue harshness against Pollard. Clinton should turn around and pardon Pollard--a target of unfair treatment at the hands of a "patriot" who wasn't so clean himself...
...enough that Bush signalled that shadow governments are acceptable and the separation of powers meaningless by cooperating in the Iran-contra cover-up. He didn't even exhibit a shred of courage by admitting that what Weinberger and the others did was wrong, but that he had chosen to pardon them anyway...