The Ballad of Ramos and Compean Comes To An End

By Michael Scherer | @michaelscherer | January 19, 2009 | +

President Bush has commuted the sentences of the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were convicted over the shooting of a Mexican drug dealer. Over the last couple years, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have became martyred folk heroes on conservative talk radio, for seal-the-borders activists and for CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

Bush met the folk singers half way. From the Associated Press story, “Bush didn’t pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.”

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ivb3016

Oh dear, one less thing for Dobbs to fuss about. Guess he’ll have to turn that attention on the failings of Obama’s financial plan now.
Dee in Columbia MD

Well I guess that’s something, I’m surprised that Bush even bothered to recognize that these two border control agents broke the law. I just hope that in the end Bush will have an opportunity to learn the same hard lesson that the border patrol agents had to learn — we are a nation of laws and criminal will be prosecuted.
http://rodeomati.blogspot.com pattonmat89

Yes, because shooting an unarmed guy as he’s running away, then covering it up is a very heroic thing to do. Doesn’t Lou have anything better to do?
ymmartin

I wonder what Dobbs would have thought if this had happened at the Canadian border to a white Canadian…
sevenoaks07

This is absolutely terrible: it deprives Lou Dobbs and his Amen Chorus of their raison d’etre. They wanted these guys in jail; fantastic for ratings. I switched off Dobbs – bad for my digestion.

ymmartin: he would have checked if the border cops were French Canadians. There’s WHITE and white in Canada.
ymmartin

@sevenoaks07 – LMAO, too funny. Thanks for that.
FlownOver

Note to commenters in London, Ont. – Don’t try this at home.
ivb3016

BTW, According to NPR, Bush’s office announced that there will be no more pardons or commutations.
FlownOver

ivb – I’ll believe this at noon EST tomorrow.
ivb3016

FO, I agree, it just seemed a little hopeful. (Will also show how good NPR’s WH sources are!)
newfloridian

Somewhere in television land America’s greatest racist Lou Dobbs is sobbing because he has no border cause to pursue. He is rendered irrelevant.. Anyone hear the tick tock of a career going down the tubes and televison execs looking about for a replacement? Sweet!!!
53_3

I guess that that’s the end of Three Strikes then?
.
For murder, you get fired and talked about.
.
Now if one was a hit-man, what then?