When talking about the short run and long run implications of anything it must be acknowledged that in the long run we're all dead. Furthermore, in the medium t

When talking about the short run and long run implications of anything it must be acknowledged that in the long run we're all dead. Furthermore, in the medium term a very large portion of people's lives can be wasted. Instinctually, I tend towards preferring legalism, and the formation of institutions rather than cults of personality and the types of ad hoc choices that undermine rational preferences in policy decisions. However, politics are human with outputs often affecting inputs and any number of chaotic dynamics, such that a controlled corruption of some sort might be useful. Especially if the point of political leaders is to lead while environments are in flux, it makes sense that they'd occasionally find someone guilty of a current law not guilty in the context of where the law should be. Taking a very large step back, it may have been a historic mistake by the President to pardon the large number of Americans who committed torture and ordered people to be torturers. It was unseemly to even consider the type of punishment people meritted for doing what they claimed was work for their country, and possibly as problemmatic to consider the last VP or even President being imprisoned or an even more severe punishment. On the one hand that likely would have ushered in cycles of political retribution that were violent and vindictive. On the other, the pardons have allowed people to pretend that torture isn't definitively illegal regardless of any claimed justifications.