Justice ... for some

The Ghosts Bush Left Behind
Mary Mapes

Posted July 11, 2007

Scooter Libby's commutation is still being celebrated in some circles, but down here in Texas, President Bush's move has stirred bitter memories and awakened old ghosts.

I can't help remembering all the people I reported on who begged then-Governor Bush for mercy. They begged for the lives of clients and childhood friends, fathers, sons and brothers, mothers and next-door neighbors. They begged for their own lives. They were all turned away.

Texas has a fabled history of frontier-style justice. Heck, the Houston District Attorney's office alone has sent more people to their deaths than many Third World countries.

But no one in Texas, certainly not anyone in our semi-civilized history, has displayed the moral disregard on the death penalty that George W. Bush demonstrated in his years as governor.

From 1995 to 2001, George W. Bush presided over more than 150 executions, more than any governor in modern times. He signed death warrants the way Britney Spears signs autographs. He refused to allow stays, even for DNA testing, and he answered concerns about the fairness of the system by mouthing empty platitudes about justice and the purity of jury verdicts.

(Emphasis added.)

Read the rest ... another case study in hypocracy.