In Montana yesterday, Brian Schweitzer demonstrated once again that, contrary to conventional wisdom, he wasn't elected just by being pro-hunting and guns.
Late in World War I, anti-German sentiment ran particularly high in Montana, which had a large German-American population. The state legislature made it illegal to speak German, banned all books in the language, and passed an anti-sedition law that essentially made criticism of the government illegal. Seventy-nine people were convicted under the law.
Yesterday, Gov. Schweitzer pardoned them all.
(there's more!)
"I'm going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said," Mr. Schweitzer said, referring to the man who signed the sedition legislation into law in 1918. "I'm sorry, forgive me, and God bless America, because we can criticize our government."
It's not a big story, but there are lessons to be learned here for Democrats. The pardons are a shrewd political move, a chance for the governor to get a headline on a story that makes him look noble and puts his (conservative) predecessors in an ugly light for not doing this earlier. His statement is perfectly phrased. It's an action that pointedly - and bravely - attacks the jingoist elements of our current political scene. And, of course, it happens to also be, without a doubt, the right thing to do.
It's not very often that one of our politicians gets all those things right on one day. We should applaud them when they do.