Re Jonathan Pollard: I’ll have to get another metaphor

I remember probably when Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to jail—or, more exactly, I certainly remember hearing stuff about him within a very few years afterward, probably in the late 1980s, maybe even 1986 or 1987. (Much more recently, apropos of some other issue, I commented on his case in this blog entry from early 2013, within item #4 under the subhead “Some initial responses to the media discussion.”)

And certainly over the years, I knew enough about the case that I took notice, as have others, that every president since Ronald Reagan declined to release Pollard from jail every time his supporters tried another appeal for probation, release, or whatever, and the administration at hand reviewed his case records and apparently concluded easily, “No, keep him in jail!”

Also, every now and then in my private affairs, I thought—with some playfulness with the allusion—that I was “doing a Jonathan Pollard” whenever I reviewed in my records some key stuff about someone in the media-work world I’d had a very consequential falling-out with, and found that the specific, relevant history as recorded in my journal (or other records) showed that I should not be so forgiving, or otherwise forgetful of some key orienting fact, as I was in more recent times tending to do. (Because I did start thinking positively about these people, and then when I reviewed the old facts—some of which they, for whatever reasons [and serving their own interests], could have remembered just as much as I—I realized that my positive thinking was a bit too much wishful thinking.)

Now that Jonathan Pollard is slated at the hands of the Obama Administration to get parole after 30 years in prison—and parole could be very well what he is due, with his declined health apparently being one factor—I’ll have to get another metaphor than “doing a Jonathan Pollard” when reviewing old records.