I’m no constitutional scholar. And unlike Barack Obama, I certainly haven’t taught a course on constitutional law at anybody’s college, particularly one as prestigious as the University of Chicago. Still, I couldn’t disagree more with the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president when he says he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing executions of convicted child rapists.
Like the right-wing political activist Supremes, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Obama fell in line with the murder-the-bastards side of the ruling. Predictably, so did Obama’s presumptive political opponent, John McCain.
"Today's Supreme Court ruling is an assault on law enforcement's efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime," McCain said. "That there is a judge anywhere in America who does not believe that the rape of a child represents the most heinous of crimes, which is deserving of the most serious of punishments, is profoundly disturbing."
"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said in his made-to-order statement for the nation’s conservatives. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution."
Who’s going to argue about whether or not raping a small child is a heinous crime? Who would argue that those who committed this particular crime aren’t sick mfs? But do we really want state sanctioned murder of these sickos? What does that accomplish? Is anybody sick enough to rape a 6 or 8 year old is not going to be deterred by the prospect of pulling down the death penalty? So, how do you stop them before they rape again? Wouldn’t locking them up for life, keeping them away from any other children, in and of itself, make for a safer society?
And one last question while I’m at it: In his methodical march from the left to the middle, is Obama trying to out-McBush John McCain?
Stumble It!
