Asleigh Banfield/MSNBC

Ashleigh Banfield was talking to Chris Matthews on the Torricelli Bombshell to withdraw from the race. Banfield said if Republicans play things right and gain the senate seat from New Jersey because of Torricelli's withdrawl it will be because of David Chang. She told Matthews that if that happened that there would be a Presidential pardon in the future for Chang for bringing the "Torch" down.

I can only say I saw Banfield utter this with a straight face and wonder what "Damn" planet she is from. Under no circumstances would Bush ever Pardon David Chang. I imagine Bush, given Clinton's 11th hour abuses of the Pardon hour, will be using that power rather sparingly during his term in office. As far as I know he has yet to Pardon or Commute anyone's sentence. Any Comments???

Professor James O' Reilly [Cincinnati]: Unlike the system of papal Indulgences (forgiveness of sins) that led Martin Luther to start his Reformation, and unlike the "Get Out of Jail Free" card that gave Milton Bradley's fans a great victory tool in Monopoly, our society is unfamiliar with a mechanism for sudden exculpation and rapid transformation from "sinner" to "saint" (or make that, "non-sinner"). Hamilton's comments re: Pardon Power in the Federalist Papers are well-taken for students of history; but for students of psychology or moral philosophy, there is something remarkable about the rarely discussed ability to pronounce one "forgiven" in return for the 30 shekels of silver, or whatever today's equivalent might be. The story is not that a President used a constitutional power, but that he sold his access to power for such a remarkable set of shekels to such a group of sinners. If the math is right, 39% of all Clinton pardons were announced three hours before he left office, the last 0.0000428% of his Presidency! "(Bill Clinton 456 )

There are hundreds of thousands of inmates in federal prisons, many of whom could make plausible cases for presidential compassion, and there are said to be over 3000 pardon applications backlogged in the Justice Department.(beginning of 2001) These people did not receive the Clinton's ear, which demonstrates so much of life is about gate-keeping and a wealthy person is more likely to get his or her foot through that gate than is the poor or obscure person, regardless of what happens once the wealthy person is past the gate. Although Clinton pointed out that most of his 140 pardons went to obscure (?) persons,there surely must be far more than 140 persons in the federal prison system who deserve pardons more than did the wealthiest and most powerful beneficiaries of Clinton's compassion(Marc Rich, Pincus Green, Carlos Vignali Jr, Braswell)and why was Marc Rich pardoned but not Michael Milken? At least Milken served his time and paid an enormous fine.. Clinton's devotion of so much energy to the pardons during his waning hours in office -- the unseemly haste to which Professor O'Reilly aptly refers -- is particularly unseemly since 3000 pardon applications apparently remained bottled up in the Justice Department. This makes a mockery of Clinton's much-professed compassion for the poor and the oppressed. Tell Ms. Banfield this and ask for a reply back my friend.

Professor Calvin Massey [Boston College/Hastings and Professor William Ross [Cumberland]portion of discussions.

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