{"id":940,"date":"2007-12-20T10:21:54","date_gmt":"2007-12-20T10:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html"},"modified":"2007-12-20T10:21:54","modified_gmt":"2007-12-20T10:21:54","slug":"romney-the-merciless-pt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Romney the merciless, pt. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romney is proud of having pardoned no one during his tenure as governor. Not even this man<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Decorated Iraq war veteran Anthony Circosta seemed like an ideal candidate for a pardon from then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his boyhood conviction for a BB gun shooting. Romney said no — twice — despite the recommendation of the state’s Board of Pardons.
\nAt age 13, Circosta was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB gun, a shot that didn’t break the skin. Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq’s deadly Sunni triangle.
\nIn 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer. “I’ve done everything I can to give back to my state and my community and my country and to get brushed aside is very frustrating,” said Circosta, 29, of Agawam, Mass. “I’m not some shlub off the street.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Romney said no. No pardons.
\nOh, except this – he said he would consider pardoning Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby. “It’s worth looking at that. I will study it very closely if I’m lucky enough to be president. And I’d keep that option open.”
\nWhere, exactly, is this man’s core?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romney is proud of having pardoned no one during his tenure as governor. Not even this man: Decorated Iraq war veteran Anthony Circosta seemed like an ideal candidate for a pardon from then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his boyhood conviction for a BB gun shooting. Romney said no — twice — despite the recommendation of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nRomney the merciless, pt. 2 - J Walking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romney the merciless, pt. 2 - J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Romney is proud of having pardoned no one during his tenure as governor. Not even this man: Decorated Iraq war veteran Anthony Circosta seemed like an ideal candidate for a pardon from then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his boyhood conviction for a BB gun shooting. Romney said no — twice — despite the recommendation of…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-20T10:21:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Kuo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Romney the merciless, pt. 2 - J Walking","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Romney the merciless, pt. 2 - J Walking","og_description":"Romney is proud of having pardoned no one during his tenure as governor. Not even this man: Decorated Iraq war veteran Anthony Circosta seemed like an ideal candidate for a pardon from then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his boyhood conviction for a BB gun shooting. Romney said no — twice — despite the recommendation of…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html","og_site_name":"J Walking","article_published_time":"2007-12-20T10:21:54+00:00","author":"David Kuo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html","name":"Romney the merciless, pt. 2 - J Walking","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-20T10:21:54+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-20T10:21:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/romney-the-merciless-pt-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Romney the merciless, pt. 2"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/","name":"J Walking","description":"David Kuo blog, faith, politics, christian blog, tempting faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da","name":"David Kuo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","caption":"David Kuo"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/author\/dkuo"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}