Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Reigning in capital punishment, again

The U.S. Supreme Court, by the customarily narrow margin of 5-4, drew a line in the sand on the death penalty, rejecting laws that allow judges to sentence child rapists to death.

The issue at hand was a case in Louisiana in which Patrick Kennedy appealed the death sentence handed down after he was convicted in the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

The court ruled that the sentence was excessive and violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The court went beyond the question in the case to rule out the death penalty for any individual crime — as opposed to “offenses against the state,” such as treason or espionage — “where the victim’s life was not taken.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said there was “a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and non-homicide crimes against individual persons,” even such “devastating” crimes as the rape of a child, on
the other.

I am a death-penalty opponent, as readers of my blog and columns know, and I would have prefered that the court finally toss out capital punishment completely. But I’ll have to settle for this.

As for how the decision will affect my presidential vote (ha ha) or the vote of the nation, consider these disturbing and disappointing responses from the two men who are vying to take over the nation’s highest office:

Both presidential candidates criticized the death penalty decision. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, 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” He called the decision “an assault on law enforcement’s efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime.”

Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said, “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 under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, that the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution.” He added that the Supreme Court should have set conditions for imposing the death penalty for the crime, “but it basically had a blanket prohibition, and I disagree with the decision.”

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What good are Democrats?

Chris Dodd is my new hero. He appears to be Dan Froomkin’s hero, as well, along with Glenn Greenwald of Salon — who called it “one of the most compelling and inspired speeches by a prominent politician that I’ve heard in quite some time.”
The reason is that Dodd has been hammering home the dangers of the Bush approach to surveillance and Congressional Democrats’ willingness to compromise to avoid appearing weak. Dodd’s assault — I think that is fair — on this cynical approach is a reminder in many ways that we will need to apply significant pressure to the Democratic nominee (the Republican nominee is a lost cause on this) if we are to keep him from tacking right.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic standard-bearer, has announced that he plans to support the FISA deal — an about-face from his early promise to fillibuster any legislation that included immunity from lawsuits for telecom companies that may have been involved in domestic spying. His reasoning: The bill

“firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future”

and

“guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward.”

“It is a close call for me,” Obama told reporters. But he said the addition of the “exclusivity” provision giving power to the secret court, along with a new inspector general role and other oversight additions, “met my basic concerns.” He said the bill’s target should not be the phone companies’ culpability, but “can we get to the bottom of what’s taking place, and do we have safeguards?”

That’s just not enough, as Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat, makes clear in comments about his Democratic House colleagues:

“That’s a farce and it’s political cover,” Feingold said. “Anybody who claims this is an okay bill, I really question if they’ve even read it. ”

“Democrats enabled [this],” Feingold went on. “Some of the rank-and-file Democrats in the Senate who were elected on this reform platform unfortunately voted with Kit Bond, who’s just giggling, he’s so happy with what he got. We caved in.”

It is up us to to force their hand.
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Quote of the day: Fear card edition

Charles Black, Republican John McCain’s chief campaign strategist, offered a glimpse into the mind of the GOP’s mind earlier this week when he let slip, during a Fortune magazine profile of his boss, that “one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy.”

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says
Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is
the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black
concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist
attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

This may carry a kernel of truth, but it still comes across as creepy fearmongering. Which brings me to Juan Cole. Writing on his Informed Comment blog, he slaps the campaign down, linking it to seven years of President Bush and Co. playing to our fears and calling for a different direction:

We don’t need any more of this politics of fear that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Bush gave to us. That McCain has such people around him is yet another indication that he is too close to Bush and Bushism to be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Nuff said.

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