Pardon Me, But...

 

Because I grew up in a family of lawyers, I indicated my intention to become one on college applications. Once there, though, I found myself having more fun in science labs than in libraries. Then, returning home on Christmas break, my mom showed me letters I’d never seen, ones she’d received after my biological father died, unexpectedly, after an operation, ten days before I was born. He was a doctor. They were wonderful letters of sympathy for her and praise of him, from friends, from patients. Several noted that after he died, I was born, as if handed a baton. Also, his name was Sid. I think showing me the letters was premeditated [no pun], since Mom always introduced me to her friends as “Doctor Schwab,”. I’d tell them, “You can just call me Doctor.”

Did it make me a liar, having told colleges I planned to be a lawyer? Or was it a change of mind? Is there no difference? I ask because people are calling President Biden a liar for pardoning his son, after saying he wouldn’t. So, despite initially deciding not to, I will opine, notwithstanding that, compared to the serious significance of serially selecting sinister sycophantic simpletons by Trump, it is but a blip. (What’s not a blip was Biden’s decision to run again. That had real consequences for us all.)

I’ve been asked if, under the same circumstances, I’d have done the same. My answer was yes, if the situation were identical. If I were President of the United States, subject of years of performative, fact-free, ready-for-Fox “investigations” by hypocrites like James Comer and Jim Jordan, and evidence-lacking, no-indictment accusations that mine was a “crime family;” if my son had, after suffering the loss of his mother and siblings, struggled and eventually turned to drugs and alcohol, committed victimless crimes for which he eventually took responsibility, paid what he owed, and, defying the odds of addiction, cleaned himself up; if a plea agreement proportionate to the crimes, one that similar offenders not bearing my name would have been offered, had been reached and then retracted under pressure from a Trumpy US attorney; if it was clear that he’d be pursued endlessly as a surrogate for attacking me; then, yes, I’d have pardoned him.

In doing so, President Biden finally brought the country together. Both sides agree: what he did is indefensible. From the right, it’s unprecedented abuse of power. (I’ll eschew applicable whataboutism.) From the left, though perfectly legal, it flouts the rule of law. Now, no matter what Trump does on the road to imperial power as his heads of agencies round up everyone on his enemies list, neither President Biden nor any Democrat can ever again claim to value democracy. They say. Absent the pardon, Trump and his tools would surely have behaved admirably.

For sure.

Liberal politicians and commentators whose opinions I respect are all but unanimous in their anger at Biden for what he did. Clearly, I’m wrong. So let’s move on.

Let’s consider the implications of Russian state TV host, Vladimir Solovyov saying about Trump’s intended appointments, “What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! ... If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!”

That, I offer, has vastly vaster implications for America’s future than pardoning Hunter Biden. More than appointing a mega-donating art collector with no military experience as Navy Secretary. More than choosing Trump-pardoned Daddy Kushner, a convicted felon who served time for tax cheating and other deplorable behavior, to the Kushiest, most food-and-wine-forward of ambassadorships. More than Putin’s favorite defender as DNI. More than a morally deficient talk-show host as SecDef, who might be on his way out, and whose nomination confirms Trump’s hasty, superficial thinking in making his choices.

Latest atop the heap of horrible is Kash Patel, graduate of a low-ranking law school with a high admission rate, as FBI director. It’s the inverse of the boy who cried wolf. Having endlessly and falsely accused President Biden of weaponizing government, in choosing Patel, Trump has erased any doubt of his intention to do just that. Kashing in on right-wing media, Patel has been everywhere, promising to go after every politician, journalist, news station, and government employee who’d not shown similarly slavish devotion to Trump.

Mr. Patel, or, if he’s rejected, the next anti-constitutional genuflector Trump would appoint, will remake Trump’s FBI into the equivalent of Putin’s KGB. Seeing nothing wrong with that, selectively redacting the First Amendment, Republicans of the sort who attend Trump’s rallies will delight, unconcerned about future ramifications.

In South Korea this week, risking arrest or worse, its people rose up to force their president to rescind his declaration of martial law. That’s courageous commitment to democracy. With half of our country clamoring for Trumpian dictatorship, while their media revel in it, it seems unlikely to happen here. That’s indescribably more ominous than a parental pardon.