The White House recently announced that President Bush issued pardons to 16 individuals. Their offenses included bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government, possession of marijuana and cocaine, and mail fraud. During his first term, Mr. Bush issued a mere 31 pardons and commutations. To date he’s issued 113 pardons and three commutations. That’s less than any two-term president in the modern era. In fact, you have to go back to George Washington to find a president who served two-terms and made fewer acts of clemency.

Today, it’s hard to think of President Bush apart from his political philosophy of “Compassionate Conservatism.” After all, he went out of his way to promote the concept. Given that the Founding Fathers gave the presidency the power to pardon as a means of demonstrating the government’s mercy, you would think that President Bush would make good use of it. While it’s difficult to think of compassion in numerical terms, issuing a paltry 116 pardons and commutations doesn’t seem very compassionate.

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