Judging From His Clemency Record, Obama Likes Turkeys 10 Times As Much As People

The
Huffington Post‘s Ryan Reilly
notes that President Obama “has pardoned almost as many turkeys
as drug offenders,” which is pretty appalling but actually
understates how bad Obama’s clemency record is. All of the 11 drug
offenders pardoned
by Obama had completed their sentences years before, while the 10
turkeys he has pardoned (counting the two today) escaped their
“sentences” entirely. Obama has not done anything comparable for
any human beings, and he has shortened the sentence of
exactly one drug offender, even though he and his attorney
general
concede that thousands are serving unfairly long prison
terms.

If we limit the analysis to offenders whose punishments have
been reduced by Obama, his ratio is 10 turkeys to one person.
Another enlightening comparison: Attorney General Eric Holder’s
recently announced
change in charging practices, if fully implemented by federal
prosecutors, could result in
shorter sentences for about 500 drug offenders each year.
That’s just 2 percent of all the federal drug offenders who are
sentenced each year, but it is still 2,500 times as impressive as
Obama’ commutation record.

Reilly also gives the president too much credit when he says
“Obama has granted the fewest pardons of any modern president.” The
truth is the Obama has pretty much the
worst clemency record ever. He granted fewer pardons and
commutations in his first term than any other president, except for
George Washington (who probably did not have a lot of applications
during the first few years of the nation’s existence) and two
presidents, William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, who died
shortly after taking office. This year he
issued 17 additional pardons. But judging from numbers
compiled by P.S. Ruckman Jr., a professor of political science at
Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois, that did not improve
Obama’s standing. Compared to other presidents who served two
terms, he is still doing abysmally bad. He makes Richard Nixon look
like a softie.

Obama still has three years to redeem himself. National
Journal‘s Ron Fournier
urges him to try. Fournier, who like Reilly uses the turkey
pardons as a peg, focuses on
Weldon Angelos, who is serving 55 years for possessing a gun
during three small-time marijuana sales. There are many other
potential beneficiaries of clemency, including federal prisoners
serving absurdly disproportionate
life sentences and all the crack offenders who were sentenced
under rules that Obama and almost every member of Congress have
recognized as unjust.