I'm delighted to see that, since I published that post, another reason why the SSA is unwise and unnecessary has become evident.  

Just this morning, as Sentencing Law and Policy notes, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler announced at a conference at NYU Law School that the power of executive clemency "can serve as a 'fail-safe' for correcting errors that cannot be corrected by other means."  She did this in the course of explaining yet another commutation the President has issued.

Just so.  Ms. Ruemmler's remark, taken together with the unprecedented initiative of Deputy Attorney General James Cole to increase the exercise of this Presidential power, underscores my point that the putative horror stories of low-level defendants' being given long mandatory minimums do not constitute a valid reason to adopt a blunderbuss, across-the-board lowering of such sentences. 

As we now plainly see, the President stands ready to act where the judicial system has gone overboard.  Where the deserving already have a remedy, there is no cause, and considerable danger, in opening the floodgates for the undeserving.