Help me out here. Isn't the mission of the American Civil Liberties Union, at least nominally, to protect people from being made into criminals by the legal system without their constitutional rights being fully protected? Because if that's the case - and I'm pretty sure it is - wow, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero sure turns the mission on its ear with this idea:
President Obama needs to pardon George W. Bush for torturing detainees. Why? To establish that torture is illegal, thus making those who were supposedly involved with it in need of pardons.
Given that Obama has shown an unwillingness to indict members of the Bush administration over the CIA’s use of waterboarding, “black sites,” and other means of collecting information that the White House now calls torture, Romero wrote that issuing pardons would at least make clear that what the former administration did after Sept. 11, 2001, was illegal.
“Pardons would make clear that crimes were committed; that the individuals who authorized and committed torture were indeed criminals; and that future architects and perpetrators of torture should beware,” he wrote.
“Prosecutions would be preferable, but pardons may be the only viable and lasting way to close the Pandora’s box of torture once and for all.”
Now this is clever. You need all kinds of evidence to prosecute someone, especially if you hope to actually get a conviction. But presumably you don't need any evidence whatsoever to pardon someone. You just do it. Kind of a handy idea in situations when any prosecution would be sheerly political anyway. Your point in prosecuting is not so much to really send the guy to jail as it is to establish that your political adversary did a no-no. Why not cut out most of the process - hell, basically all of the process - and just cut to the chase?
By pardoning your target, you not only establish (if only by implication) that he committed a crime without having to prove it, but you set yourself up as the bigger person who's willing to forego a criminal trial "in the best interests of the nation" or whatever.
I see lots of potential with this idea. Think back to the 2012 presidential campaign when Harry Reid was going around accusing Mitt Romney - with no evidence whatsoever - of not paying taxes for 10 years. How delicious for Obama to announce he was pardoning Romney for this very thing. The fact that Romney had paid every penny of tax that he owed would become almost irrelevant. The narrative would be a Democrats' dream.
And why stop there? Pardon the Koch brothers for stealing peanut butter sandwiches from children. Pardon Paul Ryan for throwing that woman in the wheelchair off the cliff. Pardon Sarah Palin for saying she could see Alaska from her house.
Who cares that none of it ever happened? This is politics, silly, not real life.
You know, governors have the power to pardon too. I'm going to ask Rick Snyder and Scott Walker to pardon Rob and M.J., respectively, for trying to get me to watch those stupid Star Wars videos all the time. Who cares if it's not really a crime? You knuckleheads are getting off easy. I am such a merciful guy.
