When It Comes To Pardons President Bush Is Still No Bill Clinton

Once again proof that even when he does the right thing, President Bush just can't win with the loony Left. After having the wherewithal to reverse a mistake in pardoning convicted New York mortgage fraudster Isaac Toussie, the inept New York Times still goes out of its way to criticize the President:

President Bush changed his mind on Christmas Eve, pulling back a pardon he had extended a day earlier to a Brooklyn developer at the center of a Long Island real estate fraud case and adding a bizarre twist to the episode.

The developer, Isaac R. Toussie, who was listed Tuesday as one of the beneficiaries of the president’s constitutional power to wipe away a criminal record, is not being pardoned “based on information that has subsequently come to light,” the White House said late Wednesday afternoon.

The terse White House statement did not elaborate, but officials familiar with the case said that presidential aides — and perhaps President Bush himself — were concerned about appearances, because Mr. Toussie’s father, Robert, donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee last April, for what apparently was his first political contribution. He also donated $2,300 to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

Regardless of how Mr. Toussie is perceived by Republicans in Washington, the name of Isaac Toussie is detested by many working-class people in the New York metropolitan area. In 2001, several hundred of them sued in Federal District Court, accusing Mr. Toussie and his father of masterminding a scheme in which inexperienced or first-time buyers were promised affordable and comfortable suburban houses but instead were sold shoddily built homes in poor neighborhoods and saddled by mortgage payments that shot up surprisingly.

The Times insinuates it, but the Toussie case had nothing to do with party affiliation. If that was the case Bush wouldn't have withdrawn the pardon. The President simply saw that he made an error and quickly reversed himself. If anyone's ever abused his pardon privileges it was ex-Prez Bill Clinton, who issues 140 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office alone, including fugitive Marc Rich, whose ex-wife was a prominent donor to Clinton. Indeed, liberals are so desperate to paint Bush as a pardon abuser that they're still holding out hope that the President pardons Scooter Libby before he leaves office. Yet, even if Bush does pardon Libby it still wouldn't be tainting the pardon process as Libby, improperly fingered in the Valerie Plame hyperbole created by the Left, is nowhere the slimeball that Marc Rich, Almon Braswell, Peter MacDonald and the many other scum that Slick Willie pardoned on his way out of office.