I Beg Your Pardon?

Have you heard about the latest Republican jabfest? A recent television commercial from Mitt Romney accuses the surging Mike Huckabee of issuing too many pardons when he was the governor of Arkansas. The commercial talks of how Huckabee issued 1,033 pardons and commutations as governor of Arkansas while Romney issued none while leading Massachusetts.

This is kinda reminiscent of the Willie Horton stupidity of the 1988 election. You remember that, don't you? George Bush (the elder) accused Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis of poor judgement for allowing the weekend furlough granted to Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who went on to rape a woman and beat her boyfriend while free.

But if you dig a little deeper you have to start questioning old Mitt's motives. First of all, zero pardons? None? Doesn't that seem a little extreme in the other direction? You could almost make the point that Romney was planning a presidential run and avoided all pardons, even though it is a duty of state governors to review and consider reasonable pardons. Anything to not be lumped in with Dukakis, that liberal governor from Massachusetts!

Romney's most noteworthy pardon denial was his rejection of the request of an Iraq war veteran who was trying to become a police officer after his National Guard service. What did the guy do? Well, when he was 13 years old he shot a friend in the arm with a BB gun... and it didn't even break the skin.

The best thing about all of this ridiculousness though is that it is one Republican doing it to another. Let those fools bang on each other about useless things like this and none of them will look presidential come November 2008... and we'll elect the Democratic nominee (whoever that may be).