I intended to post this yesterday. Then I endured a solid 10 minutes of the Republican debate on MSNBC and was filled with a brand new sense of dumbfoundedness. Beyond the expected stomach-turning statements, I was sincerely blown away, but not by the candidates' fanatical viewpoints. It was the audience's unencumbered enthusiasm for Gov. Rick Perry's league-leading number of executions.
The easy cheap shot is to poke fun at the "pro life" party taking so much joy in ending lives, but we're above that! No, we shall look deeper and we shall not fail to find hypocrisy leading to a waste of resources in the name of political principle.
When Gov. Perry gets back to Texas from the Reagan shrine, he has a life or death decision to make. Duane Buck's life rests in Perry's (and a few other gov't authorities) hands after he was convicted of killing two and injuring a third in 1995.
While this case may be little more than a tally mark on Gov. Perry's execution scoreboard, humanitarians are joining forces with fiscal conservatives to highlight how unnecessary this execution truly is. But that's just a bunch of whiny liberals trying to save another guilty man's life, right? Not so fast.
First to call for the continuance of Buck's life is the very woman that survived Buck's attack. She has forgiven him and has no interest in seeing that he is added to Perry's count. But this proof will easily be dismissed by any champion of justice, so we'd better find someone on that champion's side to argue on Buck's behalf.
How about fellow senior Texas Republican lawmaker, Sen. John Cornyn? He's got quite a diametrical view of Buck's case and he's not sniping from the sidelines. In 1997, Cornyn was the Attorney General of Texas and found Buck's case filled with "egregious errors," so much so that he called for a review of Buck and six others' cases. The six others' were reviewed. Buck still awaits the same review of his sentencing - a sentencing that included testimony from an expert witness that claimed 'some races [black!!!] can not be rehabilitated as well as others' and thus, the only logical solution is to end the life that can not be repaired.
But who is Gov. Perry to follow the lead of a former AG? Gov. Perry has a campaign to run and donations to collect and Buck's life is little more than a catalyst for Perry's cause. In less than a week Buck will be just one more reason for Tea Baggers to embrace their favorite candidate for his ability to show no mercy to those who have been forgiven. I bet there's some Christian scripture out there that would speak against such actions . . .
