Delivered from his criminal record

Hard to say how much ink this will get from presidential historians, but it’s an interesting tidbit: President Bush last week granted a pardon to convicted moonshiner Randall Leece Deal of Clayton, Ga. As CNN notes, that makes him the first president to pardon a member of the cast of the 1972 movie “Deliverance.” Deal, who has worked in a sheriff’s department for 16 years, delivered one line in the film: “It ain’t nothing but the biggest (expletive) river in the state!”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

10 Comments

  1. fedup
    Posted August 23, 2006 at 12:49 pm | Permalink

    If this person has been working in the sheriff’s department for 16 years – then his conviction was not for a felony? My question would be why does George W. Bush want the public to know that he gave this guy a pardon? Political reasons maybe?

  2. Joe Williams
    Posted August 23, 2006 at 9:25 pm | Permalink

    Probably because the person actually deserves a pardon, unlike Clinton’s group of crooks.

  3. steve
    Posted August 23, 2006 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    Maybe because he “squealed like a pig for Bush”!

  4. GaryC.
    Posted August 23, 2006 at 10:37 pm | Permalink

    Joe, what is it with you Repubs/libertarians and Clinton?

    I just dont get it. Here was a leader who was highly intelligent, made congress balance the budget(a conservative value), tried to work with both sides of the political spectrum, and tried to go after Bin Laden before terrorism was a GOP SLOGAN!!!

    You would rather support a man who manipulated a war for false reasons, and who puts money into the pockets of his family and friends.

    WHY JOE? I dont understand conservatives/Libertarians.

    HOW DID CLINTON RUIN OUR COUNTRY?

  5. Joe Williams
    Posted August 23, 2006 at 10:43 pm | Permalink

    I didn’t say Clinton ruined our country. Yeah! He was pretty good President.

    But he did pardon people that shouldn’t have been pardon. So I disagree with him on that. Especially the Mark Rich pardon. But it’s all politics.

  6. CapnAmerica
    Posted August 24, 2006 at 12:14 pm | Permalink

    DING DING DING DING

    Ringing the Joe Bell again–

    Google Orlando Bosch, Joe.

    This is who Pappy Bush pardoned–

    “An even more dubious case than Hammer’s also reached Bush’s desk during the first year of his presidency. In 1989, prominent Cuban-Americans in Florida began agitating for the release of Orlando Bosch, a notorious anti-Castro terrorist then serving a prison term for entering the United States illegally. American intelligence and law enforcement authorities firmly believed that Bosch was responsible for far worse actions, including the 1976 explosion that brought down a Cuban airliner, killing all 76 civilians aboard, although Venezuelan prosecutors had failed to convict him of that terrible crime. There was certainly no question that Bosch was an advocate of terror and had been involved in numerous bombings.”

    He was pardoned and freed from an American prison by Daddy Bush.

    Oh, along with Iran-Contra felons.

    http://archive.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/02/27/pardons/index1.html

  7. Ben Huie
    Posted August 24, 2006 at 12:34 pm | Permalink

    Capn – these guys were GOOD terrorists. We will pardon and protect tham. Kind of like Kach today and the Stern Gang back in the 40s and 50s.

  8. Doug
    Posted August 24, 2006 at 12:49 pm | Permalink

    Kudos to Bush for pardoning a person who didn’t commit a real crime in the first place. Creating your own alcohol is as harmless as growing your own marijuana. Using it for personal consumption isn’t a crime, you didn’t buy it, you didn’t sell it so let them do it. If the President pardons everyone who is in prison for victimless crimes then the taxpayers could save billions on unnecessary prison and court costs.

    Isn’t it ironic that moonshiners today are subsidized by the government? We just call them ethanol producers. When the little guy does it, it’s called a crime.

  9. Jed
    Posted August 27, 2006 at 2:25 pm | Permalink

    Doug,Back in the ’70’s, Mother Earth News sponsored building a truck with a built-in still in the bed, so it could brew it’s own ethanol fuel. The revenooers got awful uptight over that truck, since it might’a been possible to siphon the gas tank and get loaded!

  10. Matilda
    Posted September 8, 2006 at 8:06 pm | Permalink

    I agree with Ben Huie. Geeshhhh I mean to say the guy wasn’t a darn axe murderer or anything, give us a break!!!! How different is this to people making their own ‘home brew’ in their sheds in their back yards???? Crikey us Aussies do that all the time. I seem to think that making this thing so public is the crime!!!!