Opinion

Many commutations are questionable

Posted March 14, 2020 1:00 am

I'm writing in response to a letter by John Moravecek that appeared in the Feb. 28 edition of the Daily Herald. Mr. Moravecek was upset that Democrats are "losing their minds" over President Donald Trump's decision to commute the sentence of Rod Blagojevich when President Obama commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, claiming "one can commute a sentence of a violent terrorist, but not one sentenced for nonviolent crimes. Go figure."

Lest we forget: in 1991, George H.W. Bush released from jail Orlando Bosch, a notorious anti-Castro terrorist implicated in the 1976 Cubana Airlines bombing that killed 73, offering him U.S. residency. When Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, he was instrumental in securing the 2001 release of two Cuban-American terrorists convicted of assassinating a leftist Chilean ex-diplomat and his American colleague in Washington, D.C., in 1976. And in 2005, President George W. Bush treated another prominent anti-Castro Cuban terrorist, Luis Posada (who was also implicated in the Cubana Airlines bombing), with extreme dutifulness when Posada decided to sneak back into the country after a 2000 attempt to assassinate Castro in Panama.

Both parties have shown themselves to be rather "soft on terrorism" when it suits their needs.

Cathy Truesdale

Wheaton

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