If President Bush had been looking for a textbook case of a federal offender who should never win a presidential pardon, Isaac R. Toussie would fit the bill. Toussie is the sort of amoral swell who contributed to the 2008 mortgage meltdown. In 2001, he pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2002 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a scam to get Suffolk County, N.Y., to overpay for land.

The New York Times noted, "The name of Isaac Toussie is detested by many working-class people in the New York metropolitan area. In 2001, several hundred of them sued in Federal District Court, accusing Mr. Toussie and his father of masterminding a scheme in which inexperienced or first-time buyers were promised affordable and comfortable suburban houses but instead were sold shoddily built homes in poor neighborhoods and saddled by mortgage payments that shot up surprisingly." According to Newsday, a pardon would clear the way for Toussie -- who already served his five-month prison sentence -- to win back his real estate license.

And the fact that Toussie's father recently and uncharacteristically donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee would taint any presidential pardon with a pay-to-play stench.

Yet on Dec. 23, as Bush was working on exiting the White House on a high note, came the pardon that never should have happened. It was then followed by a Dec. 24 announcement by Press Secretary Dana Perino that Bush was rescinding Toussie's pardon "based on information that has subsequently come to light."

Credit Bush for taking back a bad executive decision, although some experts assert that cannot be done. If Bush had done nothing, the Toussie story likely would have been buried among stories on retail sales slumps, violence in Gaza and the latest proofs of President-elect Barack Obama's impressive physique. Continued...