Is it too early to start demanding President Obama use his clemency power?

Barack Obama has been President of the United States for barely an hour, but he has already issued his first official proclamation.  Here are some notable snippets:

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright — it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

Sounds good to me.  And if the new President really is committed to renewal and reconciliation, if he is really committed to the belief in the ability of everyone, even those who have committed crimes in the past, to be “again touched … by the better angels of our nature,” he ought to celebrate today by using his clemency power aggressively to help many of the offenders who got an undeserved cold shoulder from former President George W. Bush.