For those who can't decide whether Bush should be allowed to pardon Dick Cheney and even himself, here's a thought exercise: should Bush pardon Bernie Madfoff?

The question answers itself - of course not!

Madoff stole $50 billion from individuals, businesses, and charities. Because of his theft, people will lose their homes, their pensions, and their jobs; worthy charities providing social and cultural services will close. And because Madoff was so highly respected on Wall Street, his massive fraud has damaged the credibility of Wall Street itself, hurting all investors in the U.S.

But if the idea of Bush pardoning Madoff is unthinkable, why is it thinkable for Bush to pardon Dick Cheney or even himself?

As large as Madoff's $50 billion fraud was, it pales by comparison to the frauds committed together by George Bush and Dick Cheney.

We now know the entire Iraq War was a fraud; Iraq had no WMD's and every credible source told Bush and Cheney this simple fact long before the war.

It was precisely because they knew Iraq had no WMD's that Bush and Cheney had to manufacture fraudulent "intelligence." They took these deliberate lies and fraudulently planted them on the front pages of leading newspapers, on every TV channel, in briefings to Congress and our foreign allies, and to the entire world through Colin Powell's televised speechc to the U.N.

The cost of the Bush-Cheney fraud is literally incalculable. The financial cost alone is estimated at $3 trillion, according to Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. That makes the Iraq fraud at least 60 times larger than Madoff's fraud.

But that's just money. The enormity of Madoff's fraud was compounded by the death by suicide of Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet. But that's just one death. How many deaths has the Iraq Fraud caused? 4,219 U.S. soldiers were killed by violence in Iraq, while another 167 were driven to suicide. And for every soldier death, roughly 20 other soldiers were maimed, either physically or mentally. As for Iraqi civilian casualties, the U.S. simply refuses to keep count; the number is probably well over 1 million.

So if it's unthinkable for Bush to pardon Bernie Madoff for his fraud, how could any sane person allow Bush to pardon Cheney and himself for their infinitely worse fraud?

Update 1: Pat Murphy compares Madoff and Cheney in the Idaho Mountain Express, and discovers the difference is night and day - favoring Madoff!

Bernard Madoff, the New Yorker who fleeced investors of $50 billion with heartless precision, and Vice President Dick Cheney, a principal architect of America’s ruin as an envied world leader and engineer of calculated abuse of power, share the same amoral lack of ethics except for one distinguishing fact.

Madoff forlornly admits his revolting dishonesty and theft of investments from philanthropists, friends, foundations and celebrities. However, right up to the last days of his dark reign, Cheney not only refuses to admit his deceit, but boasts that kidnapping and torture of terror suspects, wiretapping Americans, ignoring Congress, lying to the public, launching a war on fraudulent grounds, alienating overseas allies, pandering to loony religious agendas and legislating for the wealthy were collectively beneficial to Americans.

For normal pardon-seekers, acceptance of guilt is essential. By that standard, Madoff is at least minimally qualified to be considered for a pardon, while Cheney absolutely is not. (Of course Cheney doesn't believe in accepting guilt for anything; when he shot Harry Whittington in the face, he made Whittington apologize for getting in the way of his bullets.)