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Somebody correct me if you think I'm off base here. IMHO, the "pardon" thing is not a good approach... in the mind of the public, implies guilt on the part of the Marine without even having had a trial. What exactly is this Marine guilty of? This is not about guilt with extenuating circumstances. This is about a soldier doing his job, and learning from conditions on the battlefield. He knew the danger presented to himself and his unit by a possum-playing terrorist. He responded accordingly and appropriately. Pardoning him because of the "fog of war" and extenuating circumstances sends a weak message that will get the MSM running around looking for more chances to smear our troops. I would like to see a response from the President, the SecDef, and anyone else who's "cornered" in a press event that is something like this: "The USMC is getting the full details of the case. On the surface, it looks like we have a Marine who learned from his experience on the battlefield, recognized a potentially hazardous situation, and prevented an attack on our troops and embedded reporter by a terrorist who was pretending to be a corpse." And elaboration can follow all the lines that have been mentioned by thoughtful people throughout the blogosphere. One thing I haven't heard anybody talking about, though... sounds to me like some of the terrorists are sneaking into places where there are dead bodies and camouflaging themselves in a pile of them until the Good Guys (for the benefit of you MSM lurkers, that would be *our* guys and the Iraqi National Guard) get close enough to be taken out with a grenade or other small explosive device. How would a Good Guy know the difference? Seems to me they're literally risking their lives every time they check a body. And gee, um, hmmmmmmm..., what does the Geneva Convention say about that?

I think the Marine should be disciplined for failing to lob a grenade in and blow all the potentially boobytrapped corpses to smithereens, instead of unnecessarily exposing himself to danger.

Then, the reporter should be kicked out of the country for potentially having caused the Marine to exercise undue caution and not throw the grenade because he might have blown up the reporter. (awwww.....)

(btw, anybody who thinks we should kill the reporters who are following the army should remember the immortal words of General Sherman, w/r/t camp follower reporters: "If I had them all shot at sunrise, they would be filing news reports from Hell before noon.")