Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, writes:
When he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush presided over 152 executions, more than took place in the rest of the country combined. In at least a few of these cases, reasonable doubts about the guilt of the condemned were raised. But Bush cut his personal review time for each case from a half hour to a mere 15 minutes (most other governors spend many hours reviewing each capital case to assure themselves that there's no doubt of guilt). His explanation was that he trusted the courts to sort through the life-and-death complexities. That's right: the courts.
Good observation. Some MSM may be waking up at last.
The author even compares Schiavo's case to the fate of the 6-months-old baby Sun Hudson. Though it is ironic that infant euthanasia suddenly appears to be far
less controversial.
Nevertheless, Alter still maintains some "fair and balanced" myths from the right:
In a complex world, consistency is usually asking too much. (Seeing Democrats talk about "states' rights" last week was also a little rich.)
It's a classic formulation. An emphatic remark towards greater or lesser hyprocrisy of conservatives, and a caricature jab to liberals. To make this thing clear one more time, liberals (generally) never dismiss state rights. They acknowledge this founding principle, among all other principles. It's all in the mind of conservatives to see and exploit state rights everywhere.
After all, why Democrats are considered to be "anti-states-rights"? The dominant reason is that conservatives cry so every time when social policy is discussed. But it is very questionable whether social welfare programs (such as Social Security) impinge state rights materially. Democrats may not give the state rights an exceptional status among all other principles, but they never openly discard them. It is the game of Republicans, to use or ignore state rights according to their convenience.
