In the Weekend Telegram (“Plenty of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are obsessed with U.S. politics, Donald Trump,” by Rosie Mullaley, Feb. 22), MUN professor Scott Matthews noted how U.S. President Donald Trump used his presidential pardon power to grant clemency to 11 individuals, “inserting himself into justice matters."
Trump has actually issued 25 pardons and commuted 10 other sentences; one of these commutations was to Alice Marie Johnson, an African-American woman who had served 21 years of a life sentence for a non-violent, first time drug offense.
Matthews calls this “unprecedented.” It is not. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, issued more than 200 pardons, and commuted more than 1,700 other sentences – more than the previous 13 presidents combined. These included Chelsea (aka Bradley) Manning, who leaked highly classified information, and “Bowe” Bergdahl, an army deserter who abandoned his post, endangered his fellow soldiers, and gave classified secrets to the Taliban. Obama also "inserted” himself into justice matters at least twice, declaring “the Cambridge police acted stupidly,” and “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” - both times in connection to ongoing police investigations.
The role of a leader is to lead – to make the country strong, to make the economy strong, to improve the lives of his or her people. Matthews says that Trump has strayed from “political norms,” but he fails to consider that current political norms may themselves have strayed from our original values.
There’s an old saying: “When you’re up to your (ears) in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your objective is to drain the swamp.”
However, it’s essential to keep that objective in mind, lest you start thinking that your objective is to make sure the alligators are well-fed.
Perhaps the need to be all things to all people, or to cater to small but powerful special interest groups, is what has led to politicians having a reputation for lying and reneging on campaign promises.
They have to make so many promises to get elected that it’s impossible to keep any of them. Maybe a leader who is abrasive, obnoxious, doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and is ready and willing to fire employees who don’t measure up, but who keeps his promises and has improved his country’s economic strength beyond anything his predecessors believed possible is exactly the type of leader Western democracies need right now. He’s certainly preferable, in my opinion, to a ballet teacher who gives $10 million to a convicted terrorist while telling disabled Canadian veterans “you're asking for more than we can afford.”
Sun Tzu said “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
People who continue to deride Trump as a “crazy lunatic,” a buffoon, or an idiot don’t understand him or his supporters, and by overestimating the abilities of Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, they check both boxes.
Unless they change (and they won’t), Trump “need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Which is just fine with me.
Carol Lorimer,
Bell Island