Saturday, May 21, 2011

Crime and Punishment and 2012

Politico is running a story today about how the clemency may come up in the presidential race. Unbelievably, Maggie Haberman posits that each of the candidates might have a reason to accuse the others of not being strong on crime and punishment.

I say 'unbelievably' because all of the remaining candidates have been strong on crime and punishment. You should really read each candidate's potential "problem." Pawlenty has the most too worry about, but even his "problem" is nothing that he should get blamed for.

Pawlenty’s pardon problem involves Jeremy Geifer, who had been convicted in a statutory rape case involving a 14-year-old girl he later married. Geifer had been described by everyone in his life as a model of reform, which eventually led to a 2008 pardon by a three-person board led by Pawlenty.
But late last year, Geifer was accused of sexually assaulting another underage girl more than 250 times. Pawlenty moved swiftly, asking for a probe into whether Geifer lied on his pardon application and pushing to close down a day care run by his wife.
Should Pawlenty get blasted for his decision? I really don't think so. It would be one thing if he had a long record of such decisions, but he doesn't. I have tried to put myself in his situation and I probably would have arrived at the same decision he did. 

Romney might get blasted for appointing two parole board members who later released a convict who later murdered a police officer. So if you connect all of those dots, and there are a lot of dots, then you will see that it is obviously Romney's fault. That is how people think in personality-driven politics. The personality cult member's guy is the greatest and all of the other guys should be blamed for every evil that occurs during or after their watch. The true victim of such politics is real debate over the issues. Instead of discussing policy differences, the candidates try to accuse each other of not being conservative (read "strong" on crime and punishment issues) enough. The personality cult members fall for it every time. They really do think that because another candidate appointed a parole board member who later pardoned a convict who later killed a police officer, that that candidate is "weak" on crime and punishment. This, despite the overall record of zero pardons from that candidate.

Let's all agree now: We have some candidates who have done some pretty good things in the area of law enforcement. There is no need to get hostile in this area.

Ironically, with Huck out, there is only one person who I believe should answer for her record and she wasn't a governor. Michelle Bachmann supported the pardon of one her donors. Political leaders can make faulty decisions about convicts, but they ought to never make those decisions based upon the convict's ability to contribute money to a campaign.

1 comment:

Lock-m-up said...

Romney had "ZERO" "0" Pardons/clemencies/commutations during his watch.

NO LETTERS in his asking for anything.
Them's the FACTs!

Romney has his facts, the others have their facts.