Ezra sees it as a basic pander w/ serious consequences for the larger questions of the Court and the death penalty. Jeffrey Rosen points out that Obama didn't just make the position last week up but put it in his second book; he interprets it as an indication of a thoroughgoing judicial conservatism.
Either way, I just canceled my Obama t-shirt order. I'm a death penalty fundamentalist--I can see both sides of just about everything, but the very notion of intentionally killing someone who is no longer a threat, whatever the circumstances, makes me too physically ill to think about things like political pragmatism or incremental change or whatever. If you're looking for me on election day, you'll find me at the polls, trying to borrow a pen to write Justice Kennedy's name in for president. Or maybe I'll be at church, repenting for putting too much faith in a politician.
Thanks for your frequent links to Ezra Klein -- he has a lot of good stuff to say.
ReplyDeleteI'm very surprised to see Obama say anything other than what Ezra points out that he could have said ("It's a reprehensible crime, but these are not the circumstnaces under which we should be expanding our use of the death penalty"). Doesn't even seem (to me) to make a ton of sense from a political pragmatism stance.
Unfortunately, I don't think Justice Kennedy will get elected President in 2008; I've never seen him wear a flag pin on his robe.
I think it does make political sense: There's nothing worse for a Democratic candidate than being Soft on Crime--especially violent crime against children. And sadly, the fact that the nominee is a black man could well make such smears all the more volatile: Do you trust this man to protect your kids? Or, for that matter, the troops? And incidentally, doesn't he look a bit like Willie Horton, now that we here at Fox have posted their pictures side by side on the screen?
ReplyDeleteIt may well be simple political calculation--I don't buy Rosen's argument that the fact that Obama wrote about this in his second book means he didn't just come up with it in the campaign, because he was already essentially RUNNING for president when he wrote that book.
Whatever his reasons for staking out this position, I find it infuriating. At worst, our great hope for progressive change--faith, hope, and change, these three--favors, in opposition to the majority of a pretty conservative Court, EXPANDING our application of the death penalty. At best, he's willing to slow the liberals+Kennedy efforts to roll back the death penalty in favor of his firm belief in...federalism, that well-worn refuge of triangulators, panderers, and cowards everywhere.
i don't agree with obama's statement, but feel i should defend it against the idea that it was necessarily pro-death penalty. he said he didn't believe it to be a constitutional violation for states, on a case-by-case basis, "under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances" to consider the death penalty "at least potentially applicable."
ReplyDeleteit's disappointing, but he didn't include ideology or personal beliefs - it was given with the measuredness of a constitutional law professor.
kennedy wins over obama because of one issue? i don't think he's been any great beacon of hope on this conservative court...
No, of course not, Kennedy wouldn't be a good president. And he was on the wrong side of the handgun decision, while Obama was on the right side.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that BO's comments were narrow and measured. And no, I don't think that he's going to make executing child rapists a policy priority as president. But that doesn't move me much. He could have said a) raping kids is bad and b) it doesn't make much sense to expand the death penalty's application. OR JUST NOT SAID ANYTHING. Instead, he pandered.
Of course, we wouldn't have to worry about how to punish child rapists if we were willing to elect a candidate with the courage do away with bad things altogether...
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