All is fair in love, war, and politics
All major religions carry the message of love, compassion, and forgiveness. Jesus Christ, in Matthew 22: 37 - 40, King James Version, proclaimed the following: “love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Bryant Mcgill, in one of his quotable quotes, expressed this truism: “There is no love without forgiveness and no forgiveness without love.” That makes forgiveness an essential quality; the oxygen of human relationships.
The concept and practice of forgiveness is greatly tested and found lacking in some life experiences. The two most frequently cited are expressed in the popular saying, “All is fair in love and war,” meaning win by any means necessary with little or no regard for pain caused.
We are fast approaching a time when the age-old adage may be rephrased: “All is fair in love, war and politics.” Old grudges between rivals for political power do not easily die, and forgiveness is seldom a part of the equation that would solve the enduring conflict.
Article 11, Section 2, Clause 1 of the American Constitution represents an important departure from the tendency of the political machinery to be bereft of forgiveness, save and except for members of the particular political tribe. It states, inter alia, the president “shall have power to grant reprieves, and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”, thus giving to the holder of the office unbridled clemency power.
A pardon is one form of clemency power by which the president can completely set aside, one might say forgive, punishment for a federal crime.
There have been times when the power and discretion of the president to pardon has been extended toward high-profile individuals in politics. Possibly the most consequential of all such pardons was that extended in 1984 by incoming US President Gerald Ford to outgoing President Richard Nixon, who, although never charged with a crime, was convicted in the court of public opinion and left office in disgrace for his role in the so-called Watergate scandal.
Ford and Nixon belonged to the same political party. The pardon was controversial at the time for constitutional
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reasons. However, it never reached boiling point as it would have had they been political foes from opposing parties. It may not be long before the pardon power of the US president faces its sternest test.
There is growing debate led by figures such as former counsel, US House Judiciary Committee Michael Conway, about whether incoming President Joe Biden, a Democrat, should do the unthinkable and pardon an unrepentant and vindictive President Donald Trump, a Republican, of his many crimes before he demits office on January 20, 2021. Would the Joe Biden presidency survive such a magnanimous use of the clemency power?
President Trump may seek to pardon himself for federal crimes committed before, during, or after he leaves the White House. This is a risky proposition which has never been constitutionally tested. A safer bet might be for him to resign the office before the January 20 handover date. The presidency would pass to his Vice-president Mike Pence, who would then issue the pardon. This too carries some future political risks should either himself or the vice-president choose to run for the office in 2024. Better for him to be pardoned by the incoming president from the Democratic party, thereby avoiding the all-too-apparent shenanigans involved with the first two options and shifting the political risks to Biden.
There is no precedence for this level of forgiveness by a sitting president to his political nemesis. He, Joe Biden, may have the heart to do it, but the more natural tendency in politics is for partisan party supporters, in a manner reminiscent to Jesus’s trial before Pilate, to shout: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
America may look to Jamaica for a rare example of forgiveness, approaching the biblical quality of grace and mercy extended to a political rival by the person sitting at the helm of the Government. In 2003 the UK Privy Council upheld a Court of Appeal decision that former Prime Minister Edward Seaga’s companies, Premium Investments Limited and Town and Country Resorts Limited, were liable to pay the Government over $100 million for General Consumption Tax (GCT) and penalties arising from the failed Enchantment Garden property in St Ann. P J Patterson’s reluctance to grab the opportunity to put the proverbial sword to the old political warrior is well known.
I have been reliably informed by someone who was present that, at a meeting of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) National Executive Council (NEC) held at Linstead, speaker after speaker, including ministers, called on Patterson to “lock him up” if Seaga failed to pay. Patterson, in his characteristic manner of staying above the fray, remained silent with legs crossed until the furore subsided. He then rose to his feet and spoke words to this effect: “Unnu done talk? Well, let me say this: As long as I remain prime minister and leader of this party, Her Majesty’s leader of the Opposition shall not go to jail for a debt that he owes to Her Majesty’s Government.”
The Jamaican prime minister does not enjoy clemency power as provided by the American Constitution to the president. But legal luminary and skilful tactician that he is, P J Patterson can find “different ways to skin a cat”, or for “the law not to be a shackle” as he would attest. So, the legal conundrum faced by Seaga was made to go away and hardly anything more was heard of the matter.
It is also not clear what, if any, political price Patterson may have paid for the “unmerited favour” shown towards his much-vilified political opposite. He left the political stage in 2006 without facing the electorate again and leadership of the party passed to Portia Simpson Miller.
The larger point, though, is that such magnanimity shown by a politician toward a political rival is rare.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1961: Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares himself a Marxist-leninist who will lead Cuba to Communism.
OTHER EVENTS
1244: Pope Innocent IV arrives at Lyon for the First Council of Lyon.
1409: The University of Leipzig opens.
1697: St Paul’s Cathedral is consecrated in London.
1763: Dedication of the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island, the first synagogue in what will become the United States.
1804: At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French.
1805: War of the Third Coalition: Battle of Austerlitz: French troops under Napoleon Bonaparte decisively defeat a joint Russoaustrian force.
1816: The first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opens for business.
1823: Monroe Doctrine: In a
State of the Union message, US President James Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas.
1845: In a State of the Union message, US President James
K Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
1848: Franz Joseph I becomes Emperor of Austria.
1851: French President Louisnapoléon Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic.
1852: Louis-napoléon Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French as Napoleon III.
1859: Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
1865: Alabama ratifies 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, followed by North Carolina then Georgia, and US slaves were legally free within two weeks.
1867: At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
1899: The Battle of Tirad Pass, termed “The Filipino Thermopylae”, is fought.
1908: Puyi becomes Emperor of China at the age of two.
1917: Russia and the Central Powers sign an armistice at Brestlitovsk, and peace talks leading to the Treaty of Brest-litovsk begin.
1927: Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
1939: New York City’s Laguardia Airport opens.
1943: A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks numerous cargo and transport ships, including the American SS John Harvey, which is carrying a stockpile of World War I-era mustard gas.
1947: Riots break out in Jerusalem in response to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.
1949: Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others is adopted.
1954: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censure Joseph Mccarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonour and disrepute”.
1954: The Sino-american Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Taiwan, is signed in Washington, DC.
1957: United Nations Security Council Resolution 126 relating to Kashmir conflict is adopted.
1960: The Archbishop of Canterbury visits Pope John XXIII. The two heads of the two major religions break a 400-year-old tradition set in the 1500s by Britain’s King Henry VIII and Pope Leo X.
1962: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to comment adversely on the war’s progress.
1969: The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut as 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, fly from Seattle to New York City.
1970: The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
1971: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm al-quwain form the United Arab Emirates.
1976: Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.
1980: Four American missionaries are raped and murdered by a death squad.
1982: In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implant a permanent artificial heart. Barney Clark, a retired dentist, lives 112 days with the device.
1988: Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.
1989: The Communist insurgency in Malaysia was ended by peace agreement signed and ratified by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) — Malaysian and Thai governments.
1991: Canada and Poland become the first nations to recognise the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union.
1993: Colombian drug lord
Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.
1993: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
1999: The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive following the Good Friday Agreement.
2001: Enron Corp, the largest United States energy-trading company, files for bankruptcy protection, dealing a blow to financial markets worldwide. It is the largest bankruptcy in US history.
2015: San Bernardino attack: Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik kill 14 people and wound 22 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.
2016: Thirty-six people die in a fire at a converted Oakland, California, warehouse serving as an artist collective.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY
Otto Dix, German artist (18911969); Maria Callas, US opera singer (1923-1977); Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer (1946-1997); Monica Seles, Yugoslav tennis player (1973- ); Britney Spears, US pop singer (1981- ); Lucy Liu, US actress (1968- ); Clive Bright, reggae and dancehall singer “Tenor Saw” (1966- 1989)