Missisippi Governor Haley Barbour announced yesterday that he plans to run for president in 2012 is suspending the sentence of two sisters serving double-life sentences for an armed robbery in which they were alleged to have netted $11. The sisters had denied the charges against them and their release had been sought by the NAACP.
Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, called it a "courageous move" by the governor as he considers a run for president.
"Normally, a candidate would shy away from that," said Simmons, among a handful of lawmakers who have met with Barbour about releasing the sisters.
Of course, some might say the move was motivated by cynical political calculation -- it comes days after Barbour praised the role played by the white supremacist Concerned Citizens Council during the civil rights movements.
Barbour's decision caps a campaign by the women's mother, attorneys, the NAACP and others to free them.
His announcement also comes days after he received national criticism for comments he made in the national magazine The Weekly Standard. In the profile piece, Barbour credits the white Citizens Council with keeping violence and the KKK out of his hometown Yazoo City during the civil rights era.
National furor over the comment was such that Barbour issued a statement indicating that he in no way endorsed the decades-old Citizens Council, which sought to prevent integration.
Still, whatever Barbour's motives may have been, the results were good for Mississippi and the Scott family, and if running for president forces Barbour to revisit and correct past injustices, then bring it on.