If you have read even a handful of my several hundred columns during the past few years, you likely ran across me saying nice things about Gov. Jared Polis. I genuinely like the guy, whom I met during our mutual first runs for Congress back in 2008. He was very nice to me, even though, as we jokingly discussed, he was essentially assured of victory while I was, well, not so much down here in deep-red El Paso County.

During our campaigns, we found ourselves together a number of times. I still remember attending his rollout, during the Democratic National Convention, of his plan to end the Iraq War (remember that one?). Near the end of the campaign, he sent my campaign headquarters (a small house in Colorado Springs that a donor let us use) a big box of really good cookies. I mean, these were tasty. Really tasty. Later, when I was wrapping up my four years of work on the staff of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, I was surprised and delighted to get a phone call from then-Congressman Polis, thanking me for my work with veterans and others. He made me feel special, and I appreciate that.

Which is why it is so painful to differ so sharply with him on what I fear may turn out to be the most remembered act he took during his two terms in office: the clemency, as reported in Colorado Politics, he granted for Tina Peters.

Now, I have read the governor’s statement on why he did what he did, and I think I understand it. He issues, as is traditional, a number of pardons, commutations and other judicial relief to a number of people. But it will be his essentially cutting her sentence in half that will echo in the minds of many, especially his disappointed Democratic backers.

As I said, I get his reasoning. Peters was a non-violent offender, was a first-time offender, and her sentence was rather harsh. I’ll grant that. But I would respectfully say to the governor that was rather the point — because of the profoundly dangerous and un-American crime she committed and barely acknowledged in her statement thanking Polis.

There have been scandals before, of course. Under President Ulysses S. Grant, a number of people he thought were his friends took advantage of his kindness and relative inattentiveness to enrich themselves. You may also recall hearing about the Teapot Dome scandal back in the early 1920s under President Warren G. Harding, where a truly incompetent president was taken advantage of by, again, those he thought were his friends. Teapot Dome, in case you are interested, is an area primarily in Wyoming where it was thought there was lots and lots of oil.

Harding was a truly terrible president, often ranking as second worst, behind only James Buchanan. Well, now he’s considered the third worst, behind Buchanan (now second) and a certain orange-ish and deeply corrupt current president. I could go on about the “no bid” contract to “fix” the reflecting pool or the $1.7 billion slush fund he is trying to get the DOJ to give him, but those must await a future column.

Oh, and let’s not forget Watergate. The only scandal (so far) that has caused a president to resign the office out of shame (and fear of an inevitable impeachment and conviction), Watergate was a riveting scandal that played out in my youth. And there is a connection between Tina Peters and her crimes and Watergate. Stay with me (Editor: trying to…).

Teapot dome and the scandals under Grant were what one might call “common” scandals, in that the goal was to get rich. The plotters under Grant and Harding were all about getting more money, and they didn’t care if they had to cheat and steal to get it.

Watergate, and the Trumpian conspiracies that ensnared Peters, are very different, and in a profoundly disquieting way. Though every other historical U.S. scandal was about money, the latter two were about something else: getting and keeping power. And that should be deeply troubling to you; it certainly is to me. That’s not to say President Donald Trump hasn’t also enriched himself as president in truly scandalous ways, but, again, future column stuff.

Trump by all verified accounts (including the people the Republicans hired to “recount” Arizona’s vote) found Joe Biden, love him or hate him, won the 2020 election. Trump lost, and being called a loser is far worse for Trump than mere money. Trump is all about what he thinks will be his historical legacy. In his mind, and in the rapidly decreasing base that remains loyal to him, he was the greatest president since Lincoln. Heck, he has often hinted he was better than Lincoln, a judgement historians of any present or future age will likely find faulty.

Tina Peters was an active part of the effort in Colorado to steal the legitimate election, and to find a way to give Trump Colorado’s Electoral College votes. In her hardly satisfying statement, she admits to “errors,” such as allowing access to her county’s voting machines and other crimes. The jury called those “errors” crimes.

Peters was involved in a criminal activity far worse than stealing money: she was trying to steal an election, for the purpose of keeping her preferred candidate in office. History will no doubt be unkind to her and her ilk, and Gov. Polis made a mistake in appearing to give in to Trump’s blackmail of Colorado. For example, his denial of emergency funds for Coloradans is unprecedented.

Polis now risks being remembered as the governor who caved to Trump, and that’s a shame, because I do believe him when he says Trump’s threats were no factor in his decision.

Frankly, it is likely true a nine-year sentence was very unusual for a first-time offender. And, of course, Trump pardoned felons by the thousands who attacked our Capitol. I can get how nine years might seem unfair. But again, Peters wasn’t cooking the books to make money. She was actively trying to deny Americans their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. She sinned against the very core of the nation.

You can be sure Trump would have liked to pardoned her on day one in office (as he did with the insurrectionists), but her crimes were state crimes, and state criminal justice systems are beyond the reach of his tiny hands and corrupt heart.

At least, I thought, Tina Peters would be forced to suffer the full consequences of her actions. At least, I thought, someone in the vast criminal conspiracy that is the Trump world (gotten your Trump phone yet?) would be forced to spend her full sentence in prison.

Or so I thought.

I still like Gov. Polis. I am sure he is a good man. But his judgement on Tina Peters, though understandable, was just wrong. She should have stayed in jail for her full sentence, as a warning, if nothing else, that at least some of the time, crimes against liberty have consequences.

Richard Nixon and Peters are the same: people who corrupted the electoral system to keep power. That’s about as un-American as it gets.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.