Clemency policy and practice as symbol of failed Obama presidency

Regular readers know I have long been critical of modern presidential failings in the use of the constitutional clemency authority.  Though I understand why President Bush and now President Obama have been disinclined to make real use of their clemency powers following Bill Clinton's out-the-door pardon debacles, prior abuse and misuse of a constitutional power by a former president does not justify disuse of that power altogether.  Moreover, as I have stressed in prior posts, it strikes me as not merely misguided but truly very bad politics for modern Presidents to fail to showcase leadership and their core values by essentially ignoring the many thousands of persons seeking better justice or merited mercy through their clemency requests.

Regular readers likely recall that during the early months of the Obama presidency, I was regularly urging the president to give symbolic expression to his campaign themes of hope and change via his clemency powers:  President Obama could have showed he meant what he said on the campaign trail simply by changing one crazy-long federal prison sentence and thereby showing the hope in a former offender's ability to become a productive law-abiding citizen.

The main point in making this provocative point is that, by placing short-term (and short-sighted) political calculations ahead of demonstrating actual leadership and core values in the exercise of his historic clemency power, President Obama through his clemency (lack of) action instead demonstrates that he apparently lacks the core convictions and political courage which I had hoped could and would enable him to be an increadibly successful President.