Begging readers' pardon, a defense of the 'indefensible'

By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist

Because I grew up in a family of lawyers, I indicated my intention to become one on college applications. Once there, though, I found myself having more fun in science labs than in libraries.

Then, returning home on Christmas break, my mom showed me letters I’d never seen, ones she’d received after my biological father died, unexpectedly, after an operation, 10 days before I was born. He was a doctor. They were wonderful letters of sympathy for her and praise of him, from friends, from patients. Several noted that after he died, I was born, as if handed a baton. Also, his name was Sid. I think showing me the letters was premeditated [no pun], since Mom always introduced me to her friends as “Doctor Schwab.” I’d tell them, “You can just call me Doctor.”

Did it make me a liar, having told colleges I planned to be a lawyer? Or was it a change of mind? Is there no difference? I ask because people are calling President Biden a liar for pardoning his son, after saying he wouldn’t. So, despite initially deciding not to, I will opine, notwithstanding that, compared to the serious significance of serially selecting sinister sycophantic simpletons by Trump, it is but a blip. (What’s not a blip was Biden’s decision to run again. That had real consequences for us all.)

I’ve been asked if, under the same circumstances, I’d have done the same. My answer was yes, if the situation were identical. If I were President of the United States, subject of years of performative, fact-free, ready-for-Fox “investigations” by hypocrites like Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, and evidence-lacking, no-indictment accusations that mine was a “crime family;” if my son had, after suffering the loss of his mother and siblings, struggled and eventually turned to drugs and alcohol, committed victimless crimes for which he eventually took responsibility, paid what he owed, and, defying the odds of addiction, cleaned himself up; if a plea agreement proportionate to the crimes, one that similar offenders not bearing my name would have been offered, had been reached and then retracted under pressure from a Trumpy U.S. attorney; if it was clear that he’d be pursued endlessly as a surrogate for attacking me; then, yes, I’d have pardoned him.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-begging-readers-pardon-a-defense-of-the-indefensible/