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.”