It's Political Calculus, Baby

Not the math kind. This is the July Fourth of Political Calculus writ large, and writ more difficult to explain. Math isn't supposed to be affected by the timing of revelations.

Political math is all about timing. Or at least it is far too often in our calculating society -- the one that is headed by the "inside" the Beltway folks.

Then there are the rest of us.

We The People...

In order to live in a nation governed by the People, establish a society based upon the equal protection of the law, and the equal obligations of all persons under that law, form a more perfect Union, and establish, (for the first time in history), the right of people to pursue happiness, recognized one important principle.

All calculations in the maths that result in whatever is following the equal sign represents true equality did an amazing thing. We declared on July 2, 1776, (hard copy not fully inked until July 4, 1776) our Independence from a system of laws based upon the status of a person, and simply declared all people were equal.

We knew then, and we all know now, though some might not want to admit it, that Equality means that if you bend or break a law, you have to pay a debt to society. If the debt is neither identified, recognized nor paid, there is a group of people above the law. And "above the law" just ain't "equal" under the law.

Except when some are more equal than others.

Like now.

Like this July 4. Some are more equal than others.

Some, after misleading the nation, and lying to the enforcers of the nation's laws, are now able to walk free, unencumbered by the reality of a debt to be paid by serving time behind bars.

Others? Not so much.

Got clout?

Plug it into the Political Calculus-inator, and out comes a commutation.

Not exactly equality under the law.

Were we, members of the still far too silent majority, found guilty of lying to an extent that an entire criminal prosecution of the underlying crime of 'outing' a federal agent doesn't happen, we'd pay. If that outed agent was concerned with the detection of, and elimination of Weapons of Freaking Mass Destruction, we would be, ourselves, rotting in prison, effectively destroyed.

If our crime was committed in wartime, the legal penalty for outing a secret agent would be rightly identified as treason. And we would pay our debt, for that is the price of living in a society where all are equal under the law.

It's not the crime alone, it's the attempted (or successful) derailing the investigation with piles of stinking untruths, piled high, that is also a very big crime. And if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Unless the Presidential pen is loaded with ink designed to write you into freedom from debt to society for your crime.

In wartime, the 'debt' for outing that agent (undercover at the time), would be classified under "treason". That's a BIG crime, with a big debt. Not just a debt to she, whose job it was to keep us safe from Weapons of Mass Destruction. The "debt" for treason is the forfeiture of life itself by the builty.

That would mean our sentence could have been modified very little. Well, if we were ordinary, guilty, treasonous felons. We might entertain our choice of, "would that be a 9 mil to the heart, or would you prefer a '38 to the brain?" Beyond that, no chance for sentence modification, except perhaps a last minute adjustment to the dessert selection of our last meal.

What is appalling in all of this -- what is truly appalling, is this. The biggest talking points will be on the "lame duckness" effect of the commutation.

Words matter. Deeds matter. And in the end, the calculus that matters is not the effect on the White House Wannabes that will matter.

The worst effects that will matter for decades to come, shall be found in the hearts and minds of children seeing yet another privileged person of political persuasion walk free, with no duty to fulfill their obligations under the law, because of the stroke of a Presidential Pen.

Oh yes, the children are watching. And when the fireworks are over, the smell of gunpowder a memory, and the sunburn has faded, what shall we answer when some cherubic voice asks, "Why did that man who was found guilty by a Court, not go to jail?"

Just how does one explain the duty to "do the time if you do the crime", in these days of "renewed honor, honesty and duty", brought to this White House thanks to a compliant Supreme Court in 2000?

Would the next Isaac "Machiavelli" Newton of political calculus explain that one, please? Loudly? Publicly? With charts and graphs and citations?

I know, it's tough. Four years of advanced mathematics have left me scratching my head too.