Or, as they say in the article, that's 4 months from now, a somewhat reasonable time (considering it could have been 28 years and 4 months) to finish everything up, get her affairs on the outside settled, and all the bureaucracy done.
the commutation could have been done 2 months ago to allow for reasonable time. Also, it's not like the president doesn't have the resources or authority to accelerate it. Pardon my cynicism, but (not that I have any sympathy for the incoming president) it seems more like a political ploy to put the incoming president in a conflict where the president is tempted to do something deeply unethical to be politically consistent.