There are many valid reasons to criticize Trump’s pardon of Arpaio. But the media is treating it with a bit of hyperbole. You can make the argument that it flouts the rule of law, but then again, doesn’t every presidential pardon do so? By definition (IIUC), the pardon excuses someone who has been convicted of a crime*.
The analysis they had on the PBS News hour last night said: Uncommon but not entirely unprecedented.
He didn’t wait for the sentence to be passed and he didn’t have the Justice Dept weigh in. But Trump campaigned on being a guy who would shake up the status quo, so I don’t know why anyone should be surprised about this kind of stuff.
My understanding is that part of what he is being pardoned for is contempt of court. This is being seen as a signal to anyone that the Judicial system will be subpoenaing that the courts have no power to compel anyone to testify against Trump or his family/associates. It’s saying that he considers the courts to be powerless and he will pardon anyone that gets charged with contempt of court so ignore any forthcoming subpeoenas.
It is a direct attack on the judicial system and the rule of law. Its a dictator move.
I haven’t looked too deeply into this myself and am just going by analysis I’ve heard though.
Do you have this set up as a canned autoresponse? Care to extrapolate and defend this opinion with anything? Sounds like a knee jerk reaction to any criticism directed at Trump at this point.
Hyperbole is in the eye of the beholder, wouldn’t you agree?
I think it stands out because of the timing and context. If you haven’t noticed, racial relations are kind of a big deal right now, and Trump has shown he is more “both sides” than most. Pardoning Arpaio while the wounds (literal and figurative) from Charlottesville are still fresh is, at the least, tone-deaf.
Arpaio kept a policy that discriminated against a minority, even after the courts told him to stop. That is contempt, in the name of continuing to be a racist. And Trump’s pardon just endorsed that behavior. Minorities are getting the message.
What needs defended? CookingWithGas took the mocking and sarcastic tone in his OP by paraphrasing the New Yorker article as “the end of our system of government as we know it”, aruvqan, given the choice between that option and “just another asshole move” chose the latter, and then John Mace chimed in with “uncommon but not entirely unprecedented”. This is a nothingburger. All the hand-wringing over it will look petty in a few weeks, but your side will have moved on to talk about whatever is making the sky fall that day, before moving on to something else and entirely forgetting about the alleged Constitutional crisis from before. If you haven’t noticed this pattern by now, you haven’t been paying attention.
What am I missing here? Is this a particular part of this article that you think showcases hyperbole from the right? Could you rank these statements in order from most hyperbolic to least, in your opinion?
“… does not agree with this decision”
“The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law”
“Regarding the Arpaio pardon, I would have preferred that the President honor the judicial process and let it take its course.”
“flagrant disregard for the rule of law in this country.”
One of us is certainly not paying attention to what’s going on. Too bad we will all end up paying the price for this rudderless, ethically bereft administration. That your side would rather just keep its head in the sand than actually confront reality because it would get in the way of you possibly getting what you want politically is the real tragedy here. It’s easy to handwave everything away when your side is has all the power to serve as a check and refuses to do so. Doesn’t make it, or you, right.
The side that likes cops won the election. This is hardly a surprising outcome, and doesn’t hardly foretell the doom of our nation or the death of rule of law. If anything, we’ll probably be getting a good bit more rule of law as a result of the outcome of the 2016 election.
Why don’t you come back in a month and tell me how big of a deal this has been compared to the events in the intervening month, ok? If you still think it’s a big deal, I’ll discuss it with you then.
I can’t help that I feel that the Left has turned into a chorus of Chicken Littles lately. That’s the way it seems from my perspective. You guys thought the same of the Right when Obama was elected. Can you at least see that there’s a certain symmetry there, or are your partisan blinders too strong to allow that?
The projection in this post is mind boggling. Speaking of partisan blinders…
Why don’t you try to see things from outside your own perspective for once. You might be illuminated when you realize that your straw man version of liberals bears no resemblance to reality. Like I said, handwaving is easy. So is viewing your opposition as a ridiculous caricature. What’s hard is actually trying to have an honest dialogue. Let me know when you are ready to give that a shot.
My sense is that the left has expressed the same level of concern about the decision as the GOP leadership on the right.
I don’t know what specifically needs ranking. Trump exercised a power well within his right. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Perhaps you don’t subscribe to that notion.