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WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden announced Monday that he was commuting the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death-row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Yes, really.

Thirty-seven murderers, former Clinton pollster Mark Penn posted on X, "are spared the death sentence in yet another desperate act of outgoing president Joe Biden trying to get some media and left-wing approval. They include some of the most heinous of double and triple murders."

I'm struck by the shameless straddling Biden has come to exhibit on capital punishment.

On CNN, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., hailed Biden for acting "in keeping with a promise he made when he was pursuing the presidency. He's long been opposed to the federal death penalty. He gave me his word that he would not execute anybody on his watch."

Actually, congresswoman, when Biden was in the Senate, he framed himself as a strong supporter of capital punishment and boasted that he added 60 crimes to the list of federal offenses punishable by death.

Former President Barack Obama and wingman Biden both said they supported the death penalty when they ran for the White House.

But as support for the death penalty waned and became a liability for Democratic presidential hopefuls, Biden became a supporter/critic, then an opponent.

The ACLU celebrated the 37 commutations with a press release that noted, "In 2020, President Biden made history as the first president to openly oppose the death penalty."

The crimes committed by the 37 convicted killers on his list scream the very reasons the death penalty is so necessary.

Opponents of capital punishment argue that the death penalty doesn't save lives.

Wrong.

Nine of the 37 inmates killed other inmates. One inmate killed a prison guard. These crimes prove that jailing murderers does not guarantee they will not kill again.

Another inmate, who won't be executed, kidnapped and killed a woman after he escaped from prison.

The New York Post headline said it all: "Biden commutes death sentences of child killers and mass murderers 2 days before Christmas."

December began with the president's pardon for his son Hunter, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and was found guilty of gun charges.

Mid-month, Biden pardoned 39 federal offenders and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 nonviolent federal offenders who had been released during the pandemic. That move showed that Biden's mercy would extend outside the family. The bad part was that these offenders got out of jail free, not for exemplary behavior, but because of COVID-19.

The latest batch of commutations may serve as a sop for progressives and others who oppose the death penalty on principle. But not really. Biden kept three inmates on death row, because Biden stipulated that he can support capital punishment for those convicted of "terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder."

The three inmates are Robert D. Bowers, 52, who shot to death 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018; white supremacist Dylann Roof, 30, who killed nine Black parishioners in a South Carolina church in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 31, the surviving brother behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three, including an 8-year-old boy, and injured at least 264.

The timing here has everything people hate about politics.

"Would he have done this with an election pending?" Penn asked. "Of course not. He had four years to do this if believed it was the right thing to do as crime and murders spiked from before COVID. And he could have been applauded for taking political risk and arguing his case."

These choices are so bad that I believe Biden made them.

The scary part: The president has until Jan. 20 to issue more pardons and commutations before he heads out the door. He doesn't have to be careful, and he isn't.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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