Bush Got It Half Right Today!

Today as one of Presidents George W Bush's last acts, he commuted the prison sentences of former US Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean for the shooting of a illegal alien who in addition to his border crimes was also a drug runner and all around "SCUMBAG". What I meant by half right is that if President Bush wanted to do this right, he should have given them full pardons or better yet stopped the over zealous Assistant US Attorney that put them there. I'm not so mad about this that I can't see that there is true and clear evidence that they screwed up, but lets be realistic, they probably should have been suspended without pay or even outright termination of position, but 10 yrs in prison? Law Enforcement officers at the Federal, State, and Local levels, all have a few things in common such as they are rarely if ever paid what there worth, they often work longer hrs than scheduled, they are outgunned and some cases out equipped, and frequently work in environmental circumstances that most people would avoid at all costs, the latter especially true in the case of the Border Agents. In addition to the previously mentioned items, the stress and danger levels that these brave people face every day is beyond what most could ever understand. I guess the part that really irritates me about this whole mess is that Law Enforcement officers and EMS employees in general have to make spilt second judgement calls in horrific circumstances. Then to be second guessed by some federal prosecutor who took months at his pace to evaluate the information and whose closest experience to the kind of stress Border Patrol Agents deal with everyday was the paper cut he received while looking through US Code books on how to best screw the two agents.
The treatment of these two Agents was so bad that it created a bi-partisan effort to get them out of prison and was a campaign issue for CA Congressman Duncan Hunter who stated that if he won the Presidency, his first official act would be to give both Agents full pardons.

I'm not saying that these men or anyone else regardless of position is above the law, however the standard must be fair and in this case I don't believe that it was.