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Thoughts on the Pardon, on Our Country's Birthday

Submitted by Ken Watts on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 12:12

When I was a teenager, and Barry Goldwater was running for president, there was a little parable that was often rehearsed—concerning frogs.

The story was that if you put a frog into a pan of boiling water, it would immediately leap out, but if, instead, you put it into a pan of cold water, then gradually heated it, the frog wouldn't notice what was happening until it had been cooked.

The message was supposed to be that the creeping liberalism in this country would soon turn us all into soviet communists before we even realized we were in hot water.

Silly as that seems in retrospect, the parable itself becomes strangely appropriate in light of recent events.

It hasn't been that long since a president was impeached on charges of lying, in a civil suit, about a private affair. Remember the level of outrage that was expressed by members of Congress over Clinton's "high crimes and misdemeanors"?

But now we sit, while a president (or his administration, which amounts to the same thing), "elected" twice under suspicious circumstances, has circumvented civil rights, exercised powers unconstitutionally, outed a CIA operation designed to protect this country from terrorists, started a war without provocation while lying to the American people, and, now, he uses the power of the pardon to protect himself and his cronies from the judicial system.

Is it just me, or is this water getting pretty hot?

Happy Fourth.