> Obama is trying to leave a positive view of the Democratic legacy with this lasting memory. It helps people forget
How do you know what Obama's motive is? Were you at the meetings? Did you read the memos? Do you have a brain-to-brain interface or have you hacked his Blackberry?
Should he do nothing good or positive, so that you don't suspect him of manipulating people?
> Should he do nothing good or positive, so that you don't suspect him of manipulating people?
I mean, the crime, conviction, sentencing, and multiple suicide attempts all happened while Obama had the power to commute the sentence. If there was a principle at play here, if Obama thought it was a moral good to have this person avoid a prison sentence, I'm having a hard time imagining what the roadblock was. Was it that the massive leak and subsequent prosecution didn't get enough media coverage, so he was unaware of the situation? No, that doesn't sound right, it was widely known at every stage in the process.
If commuting someone sends a message, the delay sends a message too. Perhaps he's just trying to do the right thing when the consequences won't hurt him. Perhaps it's all for show. But I think it's fair to conclusively rule out the theory about this decision being made in order to maximize the welfare of Manning. Something else was in the calculus here.
> if Obama thought it was a moral good to have this person avoid a prison sentence
What if he thought it was good to avoid too long of a sentence? One possible interpretation is that he wanted punishment because it was against the law and as a deterrence, but didn't want to be too harsh. Sentencing isn't within his control, but commuting a sentence is.
> If commuting someone sends a message, the delay sends a message too.
Sure, everything sends a message, but not every message is intentional. It's undisputable that these actions send messages, but impossible to know for sure what the reasoning was and what messages were intentional and what were byproducts. The traditional time for a president to commute and pardon is at the end of their presidency, so reading a purposeful message into the delay may or may not be useful.
Obama has done very little (anything?) to support whistleblowers or an open and transparent government in the eight years he has been President. It's hard not to be skeptical of such an uncharacteristic move days before he's set to leave office.
This is the time for doing these things... things like this that have the potential to upset a lot of people you rely on... but he wont be relying on them anytime soon... thats kinda where the "tradition" of pardons, etc at the last few days of term comes from.. there is next to no backlash for the president if hes only in office for a few more days
How do you know what Obama's motive is? Were you at the meetings? Did you read the memos? Do you have a brain-to-brain interface or have you hacked his Blackberry?
Should he do nothing good or positive, so that you don't suspect him of manipulating people?