Bush Commutes Sentences of Ex-Agents – WaPo (1/19/09):

Reserving his last acts of clemency for his final full day in office, President Bush yesterday commuted the sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions in 2006 for shooting a Mexican drug dealer sparked a passionate debate over the rights of illegal immigrants.

The prosecutions of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos became a cause celebre for many conservatives, who argued that the pair were just doing their jobs in trying to apprehend a dangerous illegal immigrant. The victim, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot.

The Justice Department strongly defended the prosecution, noting that Davila was unarmed and shot in the buttocks while fleeing and that the two agents tried to cover up their actions with a false report of the incident. Their sentences were upheld last year by a federal appeals court.

The final dog whistle to the slobbering, snarling mass that is your modern GOP. It’s not enough that they shot an unarmed man in the ass, these were law enforcement officers who filed a false report to cover up their wrongdoing. I guess we’re lucky he didn’t give them the Presidential Medal of Freedom last week.