Grant clemency to the Benghazi scapegoat

Now that Benghazigate is back on the front burner and Obama’s “the video is to blame” narrative has been even more thoroughly discredited, it’s time to grant clemency to Nakoula Nakoula, the guy who produced the video in question. After all, the White House plans to grant clemency to hundreds, or more likely thousands, of drug pushers. Why not do the same for the Benghazi fall guy?

There are distinctions, to be sure, between Nakoula and those in prison for facilitating the death-dealing heroin trade, First, Nakoula (now released to the custody of a Pastor) was a political prisoner. As Bill Otis points out, although Nakoula committed a low level parole violation, he was jailed because Team Obama needed a scapegoat for Benghazi — someone who could take the fall, under false pretenses, for the Obama administration failures that led to the deadly attack.

Drug dealers, by contrast, are not political prisoners except under a radical left-wing narrative to which Obama has never publicly subscribed.

Second, Nakoula’s video hurt some feelings, but never actually harmed anyone. This cannot be said of the heroine pushers whom Obama and Holder are so anxious to release.

But this distinction doesn’t help Nakoula. These days, hurting the wrong peoples’ feelings (in this case Muslims) is a huge offense.

Still, Bill Otis is right:

Putting people in the slammer because of the political needs of those in power is odious to American justice. It’s the stuff of banana republics — banana republics and tyrannies.

Nakoula’s wrongful jailing cannot be undone, but the wrong can be addressed through clemency. Unfortunately for Nakoula, granting clemency would signal complete abandonment by the Obama administration of its false narrative that caused his imprisonment in the first place. That’s not the stuff of banana republics, and it won’t happen here.

NOTE: This post is a corrected version of an earlier one that did not reflect the fact that Nakoula was released from jail.

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