| Petitions received | Pardons granted | Commutations granted | |
| Harry S. Truman, 1945-53 | 5,030 | 1,913 | 118 |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961 | 4,100 | 1,110 | 47 |
| John F. Kennedy, 1961-64 | 1,749 | 472 | 100 |
| Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964-1969 | 4,537 | 960 | 226 |
| Richard M. Nixon, 1969-1975 | 2,591 | 863 | 60 |
| Gerald E. Ford, 1975-77 | 1,527 | 382 | 22 |
| Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981 | 2,627 | 534 | 29 |
| Ronald Reagan, 1981-89 | 3,404 | 393 | 13 |
| George H.W. Bush, 1989-93 | 1,466 | 74 | 3 |
| William J. Clinton, 1993-2001 | 7,489 | 396 | 61 |
| George W. Bush, 2001-2007 | 9,000 | 113 | 4 |
from the LA Times
Apt. 11d 
Interesting numbers. What’s the right number? Truman 40%, Ike 25%, JFK 25%, Reagan a little better than 10%, Bush 41 a little less than 10%. Bush 43 less than 2%. This Libby commutation smells less bad than the Rich pardon by Clinton, which seems to have been exclusively about money and influence, this is partly about the criminalization of political differences, which I don’t like. It is also sort of like pardoning the Watergate burglars would have been.
Reagan pardoned some people, as I remember it, who went out and re-offended. This was pretty embarrassing. I would like to see it be more of a humanitarian thing – pardoning young women who, yes, sold cocaine, but whose kids are being punished by having no mother with them.
I’m only medium excited about the Libby commutation, but it does seem that the really low rate of pardons/commutations by Bush 43 shows, well, not much milk of human kindness.
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The Libby commutation is about this President and his circle holding themselves above the law. By his action, he has shown that he believes, as Andrew Sullivan put it, “the rule of law stops at the administration’s edge.”
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Fascinating chart, no? I think that the high rate of pardons in the Johnson administration had to do with overturning decisions in the South during the civil rights movement. But I don’t know what was going on with the other presidencies.
This Libby commutation brings up lots of questions about whether or not presidents should be pardoning anyone.
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The Libby thing is not about the “criminalization of political differences.” That is a Republican Party talking point. It is about covering up lies that led the country to war. The whole “Iraq has nukes and is getting stuff from Africa” line was false; they came to know it was false (and I am being charitable here: they should have known, and perhaps did know, that the central document was a forgery); and they scrambled to cover it up. They abused the power to declassify information in their effort to cover it up. They outed a CIA officer to cover it up. And then Libby obstructed justice to cover it up. That’s all some serious shit.
The Rich pardon by Clinton was corrupt, but that fact has no bearing whatsoever on the nature of Bush’s action. That the night is dark does not effect the fact that the day is light.
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Matthew Yglesias on “criminalization of political differences” in the Libby case:
“The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, became a US Attorney when appointed to that post by George W. Bush on the advice of the Republican Senator from Illinois. The decision to name a special prosecutor was made by James Comey, who was appointed by George W. Bush to be a US Attorney and then appointed by George W. Bush to be Deputy Attorney General. Fitzgerald made the decision to prosecute. The jury undoubtedly had members of both political parties. The judge who offered the “especially harsh sentence” (actually: a sentence in line with federal sentencing guidelines) was appointed to his seat on the federal bench by . . . George W. Bush. The appellate court that unanimously rejected Libby’s claims contains — at last! — a Democratic appointee. And also two Republicans.”
Funny, all those intra-party disputes turning into criminal cases. You’d almost think the Republicans were Bolsheviks or something.
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Seriously fascinating to watch the broohaha about this commutation/ clemency/semi-pardon. Anyone remember Ford’s pardon of Nixon? Talk about controversial (though not unexpected). I’m thinking that the mindset at work is similar and perhaps goes something like this: “Okay, maybe my guy was breaking the law, flouting the Constitution and assuming the rules applied to him only selectively, if at all. But damn it, he’s a patriot and he thought he was acting in the best interest of the country and he deserves better!”
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