Podhoretz: "The Pardons. Dear God, The Pardons"

Basically right, and basically what I've said most of the time--but IMO a bit too hard on Trump. The "25,000 lies" thing is bullshit; the "fact"-checkers are just more blue-team propagandists. Let's see whether Lyin' Biden gets anything like similar scrutiny. He'd already be off to a helluva start even if we only consider how many times he repeated the "very fine people" lie... David Hirsanyi or somebody claims that about 10% of the alleged Trump "lies" are actually true and warranted denials of false Russiagate accusations. And they were all over his claims about the vaccine being available before the end of the year...and yet...

   Still, Trump said a lot of false things, and I have no interest in excusing his actual transgressions against the truth. That stuff matters--a lot.

   But what of the pardons? 

   I do not know. I don't understand anything about pardon power and conventions. I remember being appalled at Clinton's pardons...but, again, I don't really understand the issues and norms.

   Trump's sound pretty bad alright. But, given the abuse of power by the government and courts against Carter Page and General Flynn...was the Stone prosecution more of the same? I've read stuff about it, but I never got a clear view of what happened.

   Also, of course, the blue team is now run by a cult, and the cultists have made it clear that Trump and his family and inner circle will be on the run from their lawfare and other harassment for the rest of their days. Leftist politics expands to infect every aspect of life--even science and even the personal are political, you know. Trump has to take that into account just as he had to take similar considerations into account in releasing his taxes--he knows the cult is out to get him, and he has to act and plan accordingly.

   Anyway, I absolutely agree that Trump's the kind of mixed bag Podhoretz says he is--excellent policies, shitty, anti-presidential public persona (and maybe: actual personality). But whether the pardons show the latter to be as bad as Podhoretz says, I cannot say.