Brian M Downing
January has been the month of pardons. Joe Biden ended his term with a slew of pardons and Donald Trump began his rule with a volley of his own. My source inside the White House says that the president may pardon John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.
“That Lincoln guy is totally overrated. Everyone agrees on that. Does anyone know his first name? Did he have one? I honestly don’t know. He wasn’t our most handsome president so we’re looking into taking his image off the twenty dollar bill or whatever the hell it’s on. I don’t use small bills. They’re small. Good thing his image isn’t anywhere else. He was a Republican in Name Only. A RINO! Maybe the first one. I don’t know. We’re looking into it. Sad, really sad.“
I nodded slowly and asked, why pardon Booth.
“That guy – the ‘assassin’ as legacy media call him – did nothing wrong. He was a fine actor. The John Voight of his day. He was a uniter not a divider. Lincoln divided the country by making Washington more important than the states. The war would never have happened if I was president. No one would’ve fired on that fort. Fort … I don’t know. So many forts. We’re going to change their names. Fort Booth. I like the sound.”
Did any good come from the war?
“After the war – because of Lincoln’s war, the war I could’ve stopped in a day – we had labor problems, especially in the South. Huge labor problems! We never had such problems before because everyone knew where they were supposed to be. Wages went up. Inflation went way up. Cotton, eggs, you name it. And then crime went up too. Because, you know, that happens when people have too much free time and don’t respect their employers. Sad. Same thing today. People have too much free time. Really sad.”
I asked if Lincoln did anything right.
“Well, I hear he fired a lot of generals. And that’s good. So many I can’t remember them all. I fired a lot of generals too. I think I should fire more. Germany had good generals. We need more like them.”
©2025 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.