PARDON ME, MR. PRESIDENT

I know George W. Bush doesn’t read newspapers, at least he says he doesn’t. But maybe there’s someone who does, someone who knows the president personally and could tell him about Rosa Brooks’s extraordinary suggestion that he not end his term of office by issuing a long list of pardons-in-advance to people whose actions have been “questionable.” Instead, let the law takes its course. Just this once, do the right thing.

Referring to the final sixty days of his presidency, one pundit described Bush as a man who already has a towel around his neck and is heading for the locker room. Unconcerned with the final score, he is thinking only of the relaxing shower that awaits. But this one last play could be a game saver, an opportunity to do at least one thing right.

People have little memory for pain, prefering to focus on the positive. If George W. Bush were to fool everyone by being loyal in the end not to the small group of insiders who showed such disdain for the law but to the large group of voters who elected him, people would soon forget the lies that drove us to war and the incompetence that kept us there, remembering instead that before the final whistle blew, he did the right thing.

I suppose it isn’t likely – but one can always hope.