Someone in the pre-selected and sifted pro-Bush audience at the Gaylord Opryland Resort asked George W. Bush an honest-to-goodness question, not the typical “why are people so unfair to you?” or “how do you think you will judge your legacy?” pseudo-question. It was a question based in conservative advocacy, to be sure, but it was within the Republican tent a challenging question nonetheless:

Question: My question to you is this: There are two border guards presently in jail. The Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution, with 91 votes in the House and 30 in the Senate, asking our Tennessee delegation to support, to go to you asking for a pardon for these two men that were tried, where information was left not with, was kept back from their trial. And there’s also a resolution in the House, H.R. 40, with a number of our Tennessee delegation signed on to that. Will you pardon these men that are unjustly imprisoned?

George W. Bush: I’m not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this. Obviously I am interested in facts. I know the prosecutor very well, Johnny Sutton. He’s a dear friend of mine from Texas. He’s a fair guy. He is an even-handed guy. And I can’t imagine, you’ve got a nice smile, but you can’t entice me into making a public statement on something that requires a very, I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts. These men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend, Johnny Sutton, presented them. But anyway, no, I won’t make you that promise.

So let’s work out George W. Bush’s Friend Principle of Justice:

1. If your friend is a prosecutor, then you don’t issue a pardon to convicted felons, because “these men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend… presented them.”

2. If your friend is convicted of obstruction of justice by a jury of his peers after listening to the facts, then you not only give your felon friend a commutation, but you refuse to rule out a pardon in the future, and insist that a pardon remains on the table.

If you’ve got friends in the right places, then the Bush system is very good for you. If you don’t have the right friends, or if your enemies have better friends than you do, then you’re out of luck.

Does cronyism work for you?

(Sources: White House Press Release, July 19 2007; The Nation, July 3 2007)