Politicians who seek to curry favor with their superiors can put on a real show.
For some, the road to higher office is built on innovative policy ideas, hard work and the creation of effective strategy.
For others, like Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
On Wednesday, Ker and Wang suggested to the party's legislative caucus that President Chen Shui-bian (
Because the suggestion came from legislators with an eye on next year's polls, it came as no surprise to discover that any amnesty, in their opinion, should be selectively applied.
And who should select the criteria of mercy? Why, they should, of course.
Even during the Martial Law era, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) tended to apply amnesties across the board in principle, even if individual cases were not honored for various nefarious reasons.
Today, what these DPP lawmakers are supporting is not even that generous: Their criteria for mercy depend entirely on the political innocuousness of the crime.
That means no mercy for prisoners on death row, no mercy for people who "endangered public security" (whatever that means) and presumably no mercy for anyone that has ever appeared in a newspaper or cable TV bulletin.
But since the bulk of prisoners have harmed members of the public in some fashion, it is difficult to see how any amnesty recipient couldn't trigger some sort of response. The difference is that some responses are more politically troublesome than others.
And that smacks of hubris on the part of Ker, Wang and their allies.
Amnesties of this nature are generally an exercise in vanity, designed to bestow an image of omnipotence and mercy on the emperor or autocrat of the day.
That some in the DPP would want to play this game with a democratically elected president suggests that they have a lot of spare time for ridiculous ideas, which is strange considering the very real threat the party faces of losing executive power at the next presidential election and failing to gain a majority at the next legislative elections.
More than this, the use of prisoners for the sake of furthering the careers of a small number of DPP lawmakers is wholly objectionable.
But the finer points of the ethics and socioeconomic impact of punishment have been of little concern to this administration.
Seeing as we can more or less give up on Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
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