Metaphysics

The Dems have been piling on, lately. Not because they have better arguments than usual, but because Bush and the Iraq war are doing poorly in the polls. This is no surprise, it's just politics.

They actually have the nerve to claim the Bush people manipulated the intelligence on the war--the same intelligence they saw and signed off on before the war, with Bush making the exact same claims Clinton and Gore and all the Democrats were making before Bush was elected. They're also trying to turn the question of whether Scooter Libby lied under oath into into an investigation of pre-war intelligence.

Oh well, when you're on a roll, you can't always stop to make sense.

More interestingly, a number of leading Dems have called on Bush to pledge he will not pardon Scooter Libby. Now I'm already on record as saying Bush shouldn't pardon Libby if he's found guilty, but this is a more interesting philosophical idea. Should A promise not to pardon B even before he knows how, or if, B was convicted? Should A ever "pledge" not to pardon someone, or simply not pardon someone.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I guess the Dems think it's okay to make such metphysical promises. This is fascinating, because the last metaphysical pardon (Ford pardoning Nixon for any crimes he may have commited while in office) didn't go over too well with them.