Happy Birthday, America--updated

In the cold light of the morning after, I must say that my outrage has not diminished. As AL noted yesterday, this is "one-off" justice, where the rules are different if you have friends in powerful places. And Chris Matthews (yeah, I braved it last night) was shockingly on point when he noted that if the President were proud of this decision, he would have announced it in the Rose Garden, not released through a statement at the end of business. Well, he better be ashamed. He also did this without even consulting the Justice Department and some of his drones say that he is confident there will be no political damage. Joe Biden is calling on all of us to flood the White House with calls expressing our outrage. I am going to do just that. But I understand the man is at 29 percent on a good day.

But my outrage continues when I am reminded how this President has responded to other people--other people who might be facing an even worse sentence than poor Scooter. Think Progress notes that Bush has granted fewer pardons than any other President in the past 100 years. But the worst is how this man, draped in the Bible and "compassion" dealt with Capital Punishment. The man oversaw the execution of 152 people in Texas--more than any other Governor in modern history. Sister Helen Prejean writes about the President as he oversaw this death machine and I found a couple of passages really revealing of just how unjust this Scooter commutation is. Bush refused to even push for the commutation of mentally retarded defendants on Death Row, and of course, he did that by having a morally challenged legal counsel summarize the death penalty cases in thirty minutes. Yeah, that legal counsel was Al Gonzales, and oh, by the way, do you think that the Scooter case got a little more than thirty minutes?

When Bushy was running for office, he had his ghost writer address the issue of the death penalty because, as you will recall, he ran as a compassionate conservative and "Jesus was his favorite political philosopher."

Bush wrote in his autobiography that it was not his job to "replace the verdict of a jury unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair"

But then again, he also criticized the idea of nation-building and interfering with state courts. Prejean also includes the story that I remember well. Talk magazine interviewed the Governor in 99 in which Tucker Carlson asked the man about the Karla Faye Tucker case (first woman to be executed in Texas in more than a hundred years. Bush was evidently a little curt about the famous people who petitioned him for clemency for Tucker after she converted to Christianity.

Bush went on to tell him that he had also refused to meet Larry King when he came to Texas to interview Tucker but had watched the interview on television. King, Bush said, asked Tucker difficult questions, such as "What would you say to Governor Bush?"

What did Tucker answer? Carlson asked.

"Please," Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "please, don't kill me."

Even Tucker Carlson was shocked at Bush's cruelty. Now, looking back, are we? (That story was overshadowed by another article in the same issue where Hilary Clinton talked about Bill's womanizing. Once again, sex trumps even President Jesus mocking a condemned woman.) And how unbelievable is it that Bush could not care less about the numbers of people sentenced to death but can commute Scooter's sentence before the little traitor serves even one day?

Happy Birthday, America. I feel a little sick.

****

More on just how morally challenged our President is.

The Washington Monthly: "Taking a step back, however, I keep thinking about a 2001 quote from the president: "[W]e must always maintain the highest ethical standards. We must always ask ourselves not only what is legal, but what is right. There is no goal of government worth accomplishing if it cannot be accomplished with integrity." Six years later, the remarks sound more like a punch-line than an approach to government. It's a reminder of just how big an embarrassment the president is to himself and those around him.

The White House seems to be making a point of emphasizing that the president rejected the rule of law without input from the Department of Justice or outside allies. I'm not sure why this is supposed to make us feel better. The president and his ventriloquist VP got together and decided to fiddle with the sentence of a felonious friend? This is how the chief executive of a democracy is supposed to operate? With two cowards conspiring alone to undermine justice?

Hilzoy's perspective summarized the broader dynamic nicely.

Bush, typically, didn't bother even trying to come up with a decent explanation for what he did. He didn't address questions like: Mightn't this give people the idea that there are two different standards of justice, one for people with powerful connections and another for the rest of us? Is it OK to exempt your friends from the rule of law? Isn't it especially problematic to commute someone's sentence when you yourself might have had a hand in that person's criminal actions? And double especially when no one other than the now-free criminal has been held to account, despite your earlier promises? [...]

His words mean nothing. He wouldn't recognize honor or dignity if they sat down next to him on the bus. He's a narcissistic child with the intellectual curiosity of a limpet, a heart the size of a pea, and a hollow empty void where his character ought to be."

Gonzales and the death penalty

The discussion over this morning's post and Tony's post on Virginia and the Death Penalty reminded me of an Atlantic magazine article from 2003 about Al Gonzales (remember, he worked for Bush in Texas) and his role in Bush's staunch support for the death penalty.

The Texas Clemency Memos reveal that Gonzales essentially cooked the books to allow Bush to claim that there was no reason to consider clemency.

"A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence."

What disgusts me about this is that it is a good way to get the Red State voters to flock to your side. Clinton did it in 92 and I was sickened then.

Barbarism

Feministe has two posts on the Death Penalty this morning. This one chronicles how the state of Alabama refuses to provide lawyers for indigent death row inmates. And if one manages to get a petition heard, they can only get $1,000. Truly horrifying.

Or, as Feministe's other post said:

I’ll also note here that 91 percent of executions last year took place in Iran, Sudan, China, Pakistan, Iraq and the United States. And of the nine countries that execute children* (China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, USA and Yemen), the U.S. and Iran each executed more than the other seven combined.

Wow. That is great company, isn't it?

Yesterday--good and bad

Yesterday, SOF and I went to our favorite little guitar shop.

So we are shopping while these two Oklahoma residents are discussing football. I engage, noting that one of them is wearing an Oklahoma State shirt, and try to keep my vocabulary short and simple. (Just a joke). I mention that OSU pulled out their bowl game. All nice and polite.

Well, our Oklahoma resident decided to talk about Saddam's demise, saying that he had tuned in to see if they had "stretched his neck yet." We just ignored as much as we could and got out of the store as quickly as possible. The simplistic "good v. evil" that Bush and his people have sold us is ultimately hard to sustain. True, Saddam was evil. But it is much harder to find the good in this story. Iraq is a catastrophe, and the future is grim. Saddam's execution will actually lead (and has led) to more violence in the short term. It is hard to imagine that will change anytime soon.

Thinking about it later, there are many things about our music store experience that bothered me. I have no doubt that Saddam was just as bad as people said. I have no doubt that if anyone deserved this ending, he does. But people enjoying this bothers me. It bothers me when trolls and others smugly talk about ending life--about executing "scum" or whatever. There is a bloodthirsty side to the pro-death penalty side that really bothers me--especially when it comes from religious people. I imagine there were many who enjoyed Jesus' crucifixion.

Those two would do the same if the execution was for a convenience store robber as they did for a genocidal tyrant. That doesn't seem right. If we are going to execute people, we shouldn't enjoy it.

One of the problems with this approach is the levels of separation between killing and culpability. Of course, it is very simple to assign guilt to the robber who pulls the trigger--and of course they are guilty. Likewise, deciding that Saddam is a genocidal maniac is quite simple as well. But they aren't the only people who kill. Many, many people make decisions that lead to destruction, but their complicity is less direct. It isn't less destructive, just less simple.

The death penalty, however, is a simplistic response to a complex world. It doesn't deter crime, nor does it provide closure. It simply continues the killing to show that we think killing is wrong. Sigh.

Is this good news?

Melissa Rogers: "Today has been the most significant day in the history of the death penalty in America in many years." (Updated)

Don't get me wrong, any challenge to the death penalty is good in my book, but this appears to be just about the method of execution, and is not questioning the basic fairness or even morality of the system. We are the only Western Democracy to execute people. In my mind, this is just the first question we should be asking about this system.

Streak's Take on Capital Punishment--Continued

Streak earlier argued that CP's justfication from the Bible is weak and that the race and class biases make it untenable.

But those aside (and I say that just to continue the conversation--the race and class bias are huge[the death penalty is huge in states that used to allow and encourage lynching], huge problems and I don't understand how moral people acknowledge that and continue to support CP) let's address the issue of effectiveness.

Most supporters say that Capital Punishment reduces crime (as one blogger said about the John Muhammad sentence--it will stop him from repeating this crime), yet there is no evidence to support that. Obviously, killing a killer will stop him from killing again, but there is no evidence that it stops people from committing murder. Part of the problem is that many of the people who kill already don't really care about their life and would have done it regardless of the possible penalty. The others who act out of some insanity or emotional rage are also highly unlikely to stop and think of their date with the needle if they kill someone. Not only that, but the states who have the death penalty often have higher crime rates than those without. We know how to reduce crime (not eliminate). Reduce poverty, increase education, put more cops on the streets and work to stop young offenders from future offenses. Executing people doesn't get it done.

I think people support the death penalty because it makes them feel safer regardless of if it does. While I understand that irrationality, it makes for bad public policy. People have a right to their fears, but if that leads them to support a biased and flawed system that takes people's lives, that is wrong.

Bible Gateway : EXOD 21;: "'If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [5] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Speaking of capital punishment, this is one of the OT chapters that spells out a list of laws. This particular one has always intrigued me, given the arguments surrounding abortion. Here, if a pregnant woman is injured and either gives birth prematurely (probably a bad thing in ancient societies) or miscarries, then the punishment is not that of murder, but more similar to damaging property.

Streak's Take on Capital Punishment

As CP has returned in our news with the sentencing of the Beltway Sniper, Streak and I return to the topic.

I am opposed to the death penalty for many reasons. Very few of them have to do with it being cruel and unusual punishment, though I find the practice barbaric. It does put us in pretty bad company, mostly with countries that we normally don't like to compare ourselves with.

1) the racial and class bias associated with CP. Supporters point to all the white people on death row, but miss the broader point that the bias is not so much to do with the race of the executed, but the race of the victim. When the victim is of color, there is a lower instance of capital punishment.

I don't think anyone doubts the connection between class and capital punishment. If you are wealthy and can afford the representation, you have a much greater chance of beating the needle.

2) number two is actually about number one, in that most supporters actually acknowledge that race and class are factors, but still support the death penalty. That puzzles me from a moral stance. It seems to me that most people separate questions about CP into two parts--theoretical and practical. On the theoretical they ask whether the practice is moral in some higher sense. Then they talk about the practical application--difference between jurisdictions, judges, attorneys, race, class, etc. Most people acknowledge the practical problems, but have made their support based on the theoretical morality of CP and don't connect the problems with that. I don't see how you can acknowlede the biases and still support people being executed.

3) Many of those moral defenders do so based on some, in my opinion, problematic uses of OT theology. First, there are numerous sins that the Bible responds with capital punishment and I don't think we really want to put recalcitrant kids to death.

More later.

Ariz. to Fight Decision On Death Sentences (washingtonpost.com): "'It's just going to cost the taxpayers more money, more mistakes are going to be made and I just think it's just a waste. Obviously these guys did something bad to get there,' he said. 'Some of the things criminals do are so heinous that they need not enjoy life anymore. I think they should just let things stay how they are. Why should they get another chance?' "

Streak thinks this is why the death penalty is so heinous. People don't really care whether the process is fair; or if innocent people might be executed or anything. The death penalty makes people feel like there is justice. Even if there isn't.