Best and Worst Christmas Moments?

As for me, its all good. My best Christmas presents were

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises; Charles Kendleberger and Robert Aliber.

The Limits of Power; Andrew J. Bacevich

A Bakelite bracelet and the knowledge that my daughters can support themselves, if we are ever forced to flee the country, by making and selling either bread or handmade jewelry.

Aside from that, I feel an immense outpouring of gratitude that on this day-which-is-not-our-holiday we were together without any wingnut relatives driving us crazy. If we have any, they were far away and long forgotten.

But if your experiences were different, you can post them here.

aimai

Awesome! Secretary, stay that Pardon and Drop that Kick:

JMM is reporting something phenomenally funny from the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight:

Only a day after issuing a presidential pardon to Isaac Robert Toussie, a real estate scammer from Brooklyn, President Bush decided to reverse the pardon, after it emerged that Toussie's father had contributed almost $30,000 to the Republican party.

Pardons are absolute. They can't be reviewed or reconsidered or overturned, even by the president who issued them. According to the White House press release, President Bush had sent a "Master Warrant of Clemency" with 19 names to the Pardon Attorney at DOJ to execute. But he hadn't executed it yet. In other words, the White House is claiming none of these folks had actually been pardoned yet. So the president can just send word now not to 'execute' that one pardon.

I'd be curious to hear from constitutional lawyers on this. But I'm not sure the constitution would recognize this distinction. And to be arch about it, I think the unitary theory of the executive would suggest that the pardon is full and irrevocable once the president says he's doing it. The power is the president's -- not the pardon attorney's once the president sends on the request. The constitution doesn't recognize or take any cognizance of the administrative procedures they've developed at the Justice Department.

I would think Toussie's attorneys could make a pretty solid argument that the bell's been rung. Too late.

I pray Toussie's lawyers lose and whoever is given the "warrant" for the Pardon of all of Bush's Pardonees simply loses the Pardon until after Obama gets in. Then let the constitutional lawyers battle it out whether a post facto, presidentialy posthumous pardon--of Dick Cheney, say--is still legal.