At a press appearance yesterday with Prime Minister Sharon, President Bush was asked: “Mr. President, why do you expect any government to set free Palestinian prisoners while you don’t order to set free the Israeli civilian, Jonathan Pollard?” Mr. Bush responded by saying,”It doesn’t make any sense to release somebody who is going to get out of prison and start killing.” He seemed to be referring to the Palestinian Arab prisoners. Then he started talking about the Web page of the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority. Then he cut the press queries off: “Listen, thank-you all very much,” the president said.

In other words, Mr. Bush did an artful job of totally avoiding the issue he was asked about, Jonathan Pollard. Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs, Natan Sharansky, said in New York last month that “After 18 years of prison, the time for mercy has come,” for Pollard, an American who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of Israel. The release of Pollard, who in 1995 was granted Israeli citizenship, became entangled in the Arab-Israeli negotiations during the Clinton administration. Mr. Sharansky said last month, “I am the witness of the fact that President Clinton did promise to Bibi Netanyahu that Pollard will be released.”

Mr. Bush may have his reasons for not publicly discussing the Pollard case. But we hope the reason isn’t that he’s unfamiliar with it or that it isn’t on his radar screen. Recent disclosures suggest that the deaths of American agents for which Pollard has been blamed were in fact the result of Soviet moles in America. The furor that ensued over Mr. Clinton’s proposed Pollard deal, and over Mr. Clinton’s pardons at the end of his administration, counsel caution for Mr. Bush. But Pollard’s life sentence — after the government broke its plea-bargain agreement — strikes us as excessive for actions that, however illegal and misguided, as they clearly were, were undertaken on behalf of an American ally surrounded by hostile terror-sponsoring aggressors. At some point, Mr. Bush would be doing justice by going beyond a pirouette on Pollard and granting him clemency.