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To be fair, Biden still has a month left in office, and he could very well commute the other three sentences at a later date. It would actually make political sense to do it this way, assuming the following is true:
Republicans wouldn't have given him credit for ideological consistency if he had indeed commuted the other three sentences.
Bowers, Tsarnaev, and Roof are the only three people on this list the average American has ever heard of.
Accordingly, the commutation of any of these three sentences would, on its own, be bigger news than the commutation of all of the others.
Biden's critics will revel in pointing out the lack of consistency.
Commuting the three biggest names on their own, at a later date, will generate bigger headlines than if they were part of a blanket commutation.
So, commute the death sentences of 37 people no one has ever heard of and see what the fallout is. Then wait a few weeks and commute the remaining three on the eve of the inauguration. If the story gets lost in the shuffle then it's proof that nobody really cares much and that the political fallout from the other 37 commutations will be minimal, and that they were only really a story due to a lack of other news in the run-up to Christmas. On the other hand, if the story becomes a big deal, it will take some of the wind out of Trump's sails at a time when his inauguration would otherwise be dominating the headlines. Especially since he'd theoretically be responding to Republican criticism about his own lack of consistency, and this probably wasn't the kind of consistency that they had in mind. Not saying this will actually happen, just idle speculation on how Biden could play this to his advantage.
That sounds like 3D chess except it’s losing the entire way.
Step 1: Biden allows child killers to get out of death penalty but not others. Reaction: Biden doesn’t think child killers deserve death but if crimes have a political dimension then death penalty is fine. Not a good look.
Step 2: Biden folds to pressure leading to commuting the 3 not commuted today. Reaction: Biden would rather let guys off who deserve death because Biden decided a child killer should not be killed and when he couldn’t stand the fallout somehow decided to let other people off who deserve death.
Except this isn't about Biden; it's about Trump. Biden's reputation as a politician isn't going to improve regardless of what he does. He could have signed death warrants for everyone on the list and it wouldn't matter. So whether or not Biden is willing to commute the sentences of baby killers isn't the issue here. If he had excluded one more name from the list the Fox News comment section wouldn't be full of people trying to discern some kind of general principle, and had he commuted all the sentences they wouldn't be talking about how good of a Catholic he is. the fact that there's an incongruity on a list of pardons isn't something anyone is going to care about for more than a few days. As far as Biden is concerned, his political career is over anyway, so whatever he does now is ultimately irrelevant. And it's not like Democrats are still trying to prop him up as one of the party greats.
Signing an order commuting the sentences of three of the country's most notorious criminals and timing the press release so it hits just before Trump is about to take the oath of office is just a giant middle finger, nothing more. It would piss Trump off to no end to have his parade rained on like that, and provide a distraction from his time in the spotlight. It's not 3D chess as much as it is being petty, but Biden can afford to be petty at this point.
If Biden tried to do that, then it reminds me of the meme “Jokes on you I was just pretending to be retarded.”
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