Bush; No Promise of Pardon For Ramos and Compean

President Bush made the following comments after being asked if he would consider a pardon for imprisoned Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean,

"Obviously I'm interested in facts, I know the prosecutor very well, Johnny Sutton, he's a dear friend of mine from Texas. Now he's a fair guy, he's a evenhanded guy"

"I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts, these men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend Johnny Sutton presented them. But anyway, no I won't make you that promise."

After reading those comments, I don't know how anyone in their right mind could continue to support George W. Bush as President of these United States.

President Bush twice referred to U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton as his friend. While it may be a fact that these two have a longtime friendship, it is not relevant to the question as to whether the President would consider a pardon for Agents Ramos and Compean.

Secondly, President Bush stated that people need to look at the facts. That Agents Ramos and Compean were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts that Attorney Sutton presented them.

The jury was not aware of the fact that Osbaldo Aldrete Davila was caught a second time smuggling marijuana into the United States, and that he was granted immunity for that offense to testify against Ramos and Compean. The Presidents friend Johnny Sutton made sure of that.

Since that evidence was not made available to the jury, it is entirely possible that it could have changed the outcome of the trial if it had been made available. Several jurors had stated that they would not have found the agents guilty had they known that information.

Nevertheless, the jury found the agents guilty, and the court sentenced them to eleven and twelve years in prison while a know drug smuggler walks free. Rather harsh sentences for shooting a guy in the buttocks.

Yet President Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby before his appeals process was complete, before he spent one day in prison out of a 30 month sentence.

Scooter Libby, a man who held a position which should have predicated that he be a person of honesty and integrity, obstructed justice, committed perjury, and lied to federal investigators. Yet he never spent a day in jail. On the other hand Agents Ramos and Compean sit in federal prison. President Bush thinks 30 months for Scooter Libby was a harsh sentence, yet he seems unaffected by the fact that two Border Patrol Agents are spending over a decade each in prison.

It is painfully aware who President Bush sides with in regards to his perverted sense of justice. Scooter Libby was an assistant to former President Bush, and a insider in the circles of the D.C. power elite. Johnny Sutton is a longtime friend of President Bush who willfully misled the jury in the prosecution of two Border Patrol Agents who were just doing their jobs.

The Presidents preferential treatment of close friends and allies is enough to cause any person with the smallest amount of decency to scream in outrage. Two fine Border Patrol Agents rot in jail, while our President thumbs his nose at the legal system and the American public in their demand for the release of Agents Ramos and Compean. The presidents failed policies through his two terms in office pale in comparison to the legacy of his disregard for decency and justice are concerned. I would hope that as time passes George W. Bush will be remembered, first and foremost, as to how he took the side of his friends over the side of truth and justice.