Pardon groundswell: pour it on!(THE LAST WORD)

The odds in favor of a presidential pardon for Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have greatly increased in the past few weeks. Public and congressional pressure have been rapidly and steadily building for the pardon in spite of the fact that the Republican White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress are both loath to go down that road. And in spite of the fact that most of the major media have ignored or played down this explosive case--or have repeatedly misreported the facts in the case and been downright hostile toward the agents.

A typical example: the agents' hometown newspaper, the El Paso Times. The paper's headline on February 9 read, "Ex-agents lied, covered up shooting, according to report." Incredible! Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner appears on February 6 before a congressional subcommittee and admits that when he sent his top lieutenants to brief members of Congress on the Ramos/Compean case last year, they had lied to the legislators. Among several egregious lies the DHS officials told was the one that Ramos and Compean had made statements that they were going "out to shoot Mexicans." The DHS officials also lied when they told the congressmen that they had documentation to back up their charges and would be providing that evidence to Congress. Then Inspector General Richard Skinner admits that the promised evidence to back up the lies doesn't exist (and never did).

Yet, the Times' headline is that the agents lied! Buried in the story are a couple sentences of confusing, garbled syntax about Mr. Skinner's admissions before Congress. The paper does not mention Rep. John Culberson's angry charge against Skinner during the hearing: "You lied to me and you lied to all of us." Nor does it mention Rep. Culberson's call for Skinner and his lying subordinates to resign. Why not? Those seem to be eminently newsworthy and quotable quotes. The real news here, after all, is that top government officials are caught lying--repeatedly--in an elaborate, ongoing scheme to smear two distinguished law enforcement officers and railroad them into prison. But the Times simply repeats what it has been saying for the past two years; it unquestioningly reports the lying DHS officials' false claims that the agents are lying.

One of the most outrageous examples of media mendacity (or, to be charitable, perhaps we should allow for incompetence or stupidity) comes to us courtesy of National ...