Marc Rich

Quick, grab the smelling salts and clear the fainting couches. President Trump's pardon of conservative author Dinesh D'Souza last week violently triggered Beltway media elites. It's peanut butter, weed pollen, gluten, manspreading, Chick-fil-A, the national anthem, and Kryptonite all rolled into one giant political allergen. Allow me to administer the rhetorical, metaphorical antihistamine.

During the first formal episode of CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time (following two trial runs), host Chris Cuomo engaged in a lengthy back and forth with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a member of President Trump's legal team. Part of that discussion focused on Trump’s pardons of Dinesh D'Souza, Scooter Libby, and Joe Arpaio and his potential pardon of Martha Stewart.  According to Cuomo, “…

Reacting to news that the FBI had released documentation on former President Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich from 2001, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin exasperatedly declared that the agency was either being "oblivious and incompetent" or "actively partisan" in the presidential race. He later observed that the document release "makes the FBI look like a wing of the…

Admission: Lawrence O'Donnell is emerging as one of my favorite media liberals.  On the one hand, almost exactly one year ago, his anti-Mormon rant spurred me to action.  But lately, watching him as a frequent MSNBC guest, I've been impressed by his acumen and willingness to call them as he sees them.  Take O'Donnell's intervention on tonight's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," where he made the…

***UPDATE***NY lawmaker seeks to prevent Bush pardons of “cronies”(h/t Naked Emperor News) Naked Emperor News has unearthed a 2007 KJFK radio interview Barack Obama gave to host Christiane Brown.  He promised that one of his first acts as president would be to call on his new Attorney General to investigate the Bush administration(emphasis is mine:) BROWN: And when you are... if you were to be…

Last night, Larry King had four guests on his show to discuss the nomination of Eric Holder to become Attorney General. Even though Holder's role in the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich by Bill Clinton was highly controversial, not one of the guests had any real problem with that. Somehow Larry King couldn't find a single guest who would offer arguments against the appointment of Eric Holder. To get…