A guy plants a bomb on a plane, and it blows up, killing all the men, women and children civilians on board.  That’s a terrorist act, right?  And if were up to Bush—the architect of the “war on terrorism”—that guy would be captured, killed, prosecuted, tortured, etc., right?  Right?

Well, Daddy Bush picked up the bat on this issue once, and whiffed:

Most controversially, at the request of Jeb, Mr Bush Sr intervened to release the convicted Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch from prison and then granted him US residency.

According to the justice department in George Bush Sr’s administration, [Orlando] Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts. He was convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship which was on passage to Cuba. He was also implicated in the 1976 blowing-up of a Cubana plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were killed.

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Bosch’s release, often referred to in the US media as a pardon, was the result of pressure brought by hardline Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man. Bosch now lives in Miami and remains unrepentant about his militant activities, according to Bardach.

Now, it is the son’s turn—and this time—it is a post 9/11 world.  Kevin Drum sets the stage of the upcoming Dubya dilemna:

On Tuesday, immigration officials finally arrested Luis Posada Carriles, a man convicted of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976 and subsequently accused of numerous other acts of terrorism since he escaped from a Venezuelan jail 20 years ago. Venezuela wants him back, so shortly we’ll know what’s most important to the Bushies: punishing terrorists or thumbing their noses at Hugo Chávez.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

UPDATE:  In case it’s not clear, both Bosch (the terrorist now living as a free man in Miami) and Carriles (the terrorist now in custody) are comrades-in-arms, having both committed the EXACT SAME ACTS of terrorism (i.e., bombing the Cuban airliner in 1976).