Merry Christmas-- not!

Wow...brutal...

News from Peter Wallsten in today's L.A. Times (hat tip: C-J) that President Bush revoked the pardon of a real estate developer-- one day after awarding the pardon!

Good for Bush in reversing himself, but of course, he can be criticized for the initial decision.

President George W. Bush took the extraordinary step Wednesday of revoking a pardon he issued 24 hours earlier for [Isaac Robert Toussie] a politically connected Brooklyn real estate developer convicted of defrauding hundreds of low-income home buyers after it was revealed that the request did not come through the usual route and that a relative had contributed to the Republican Party.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said she knew of no other time a presidential pardon had been reversed....

Articles in the New York Daily News and Newsday said that Toussie’s father, Robert, had donated $28,500 to the national Republican Party in April. It was his first political donation and was made months before Toussie’s pardon petition, which did not go through the usual review in the Justice Department and...did not meet Justice Department guidelines for a pardon....Further, Toussie had taken his case directly to the Oval Office and had hired Bradford Berenson, a former top lawyer in the White House counsel’s office, to handle the case.

In announcing the revocation, Perino said the reversal was "based on information that has subsequently come to light...and [that it] might create an appearance of impropriety."