Why did Obama pardon this drug dealer?

Barack Obama does not have a terrible record when it comes to granting presidential pardons. He has rejected far more requests than he has granted, and in fact he has been more stingy than George W. Bush. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you Obama is using the power of the pardon to let criminals run wild across the country. He isn't.

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But that doesn't mean you can't question a given case and ask, "Why did he do that?" That's my question in the case of Lynn Marie Stanek, the 53-year-old resident of Tualatin, Oregon, who was pardoned of the felony drug-dealing conviction she incurred in 1986, when she was 26 years old. Oregon Live reports:

Lynn Marie Stanek was 26 when authorities said she sold 2 ounces of cocaine to an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency agent for $3,500 in a motel in Salem and arranged to deliver more later that night, according to a report from The Oregonian at the time. A judge sentenced Stanek, who authorities allege was armed at the time of her arrest, to six months in jail and five years probation, on the condition that she live in a community treatment center for one year after her release.

The police said she also used a weapon in the commission of the crime. It appears she has kept out of trouble since, and today runs an interior decorating business while she is raising a son on her own following a divorce. That's fine. I'm glad she has her life together. But she had long since finished serving out her sentence and the only remaining issue for her was that the stigma of the past felony conviction followed her around, coming up on job applications and so forth. That's rough, but that's life. She seems to be making a living regardless, so the stigma can be overcome if you work hard enough. To my mind, a person who gets involved with dealing cocaine - and gets convicted of it at the felony level - deserves to deal with the long-term consequences. Cocaine kills people and destroys families. If Stanek didn't want her actions to haunt her throughout her life, she shouldn't have dealt cocaine. My issue with Obama is that I don't see what's so special about this particular case that it warrants a pardon. Stanek didn't need the pardon to get out of prison. She's no longer subject to parole or probation. She's living her life - and clearly doing so better than she was at the age of 26, but she still committed that felony, and I don't see why she deserves as clean a slate as those who have never committed a crime. Considering how many pardon applications Obama turns down - and he turns down most of them - what warranted his attention in this case? You almost have to wonder if someone might have exerted some political influence on Stanek's behalf, because the merits do not argue for this pardon.