Friday, August 7, 2009

Do Indeed Beg Yo' Pardon, Ol' Son

A Boa that's really a Rattler. I still can't figure who this character represents. He refers to LBJ as a 'pardoner', inspiring me to check the president's pardon record. By the end of his term, it was 1187 pardons and commutations, 20% of the requests. I know nothing about this stuff, is his record above average for presidents?

2 comments:

  1. The average number of pardons by all Presidents through G.W. Bush is just over 674. If we just look at Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and L.B. Johnson, then the average is just over 1230. There is usually a cluster of pardons at the end of the President's final term, and I expect that this was also true of Johnson, so it wouldn't have been clear in 1967 that he was going to pass Eisenhower.

    I could be mistaken, but I think that the “pardoner” here is no more than a pun on the cowboy slang “pardner” (“partner”).

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  2. I figured maybe it was a pun with import. Maybe. You just don't know with Kelly.

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