Reply #97: Steve Chapman = Public servants or our masters?

[L. Coyote]

chicagotribune.com >> News columnist
Steve Chapman = Public servants or our masters?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0703310092apr01,1,6880053.column?coll=chi-news-col

Published April 1, 2007

A presidential pardon is entirely at the discretion of the president. The Constitution sets no bounds on his power to forgive crimes, no matter how heinous. ...

There are countless follies, presumptions and temptations that can lead a government employee to embarrassment and disgrace. But whether you are a high-ranking member of the federal government's executive branch or a Chicago police officer, the road to ruin begins with a simple lapse of memory: forgetting that the job is a public trust, not personal property.

In feudal times, the people were at the mercy of their rulers. But the American Revolution upended that presumption. Our democracy rests on the proposition that all legitimate power derives from the people, ....

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Presidents are free to fire and hire U.S. attorneys for the crassest of political reasons -- just as they are free to grant pardons out of sleazy motives. But if they do, they should not expect everyone to swallow the fiction that they are strengthening law enforcement.

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