George W Bush has earned praise for the manner in which he has left office: dignified and quiet. Fair enough. And at least unlike his predecessor he didn’t cry tears of self-pity. Nor, by and large, did Bush disgrace the Presidency by handing out a bundle of pardons to friends and cronies. With one exception that is. Throwing one last bone to the GOP base, Bush commuted the sentences of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, a pair of Border Patrol officers convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican (who was subsequently proved to be a drug smuggler* – though the agents did not know that at the time) and then covering-up the shooting to make it seem as though their victim had been resisting arrest when he had, in fact, been running away and back towards Mexico.
The case became a cause celebre for conservative talk radio and a gaggle of Republican congressmen, for whom the Compean and Ramos were “heroes”.
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