For reasons Grits couldn't begin to explain, President Barack Obama has among the stingiest records among presidents when it comes to pardons, commutations and clemency decisions in general - so bad Grits has suggested it compares unfavorably to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who at least hasn't let his executive power on that score completely atrophy.
Late last year P.S. Ruckman tallied up Barack Obama's sorry total, and recently he calculated that President Obama ranks near or at the bottom both in both the number of months in his term during which he granted clemency (3) and the longest number of months without issuing clemency at all (24). So far, Obama has issued 22 mostly meaningless pardons, typically given to older folks (average age 61) for petty, long ago crimes, plus one sentence commutation since taking office. He's on track to grant fewer pardons and/or sentence commutations (by far) than any president at least since World War II, all but completely ignoring this already withered and decrepit constitutional function. Meanwhile, here's the impressively long list (pdf) of requests for commutations of sentences President Obama has denied since taking office.
Grits doubts this will become a partisan campaign issue, but when it comes to exercising the clemency power, one could justly refer to the President as "Obama the Merciless."
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