In addition to saying, in reference to Barack Obama, that he wanted “to cut his nuts out,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word. Jackson complained that Obama was telling (N-word) “how to behave.” Jackson apologized again Wednesday for his “hurtful words” and said that “there really is no justification for my comments.” Particularly when Jackson has been calling on the entertainment industry to stop using the N-word.
Four decades ago, Manson cult member Susan Atkins helped murder actress Sharon Tate and eight others in one of most infamous crimes in U.S. history.
This week the California parole board unanimously denied a request that Atkins, who is dying of brain cancer, be granted compassionate release so that she can spend her final days surrounded by family at home.
Should the board have shown compassion to Atkins? I don’t think so. She certainly didn’t show compassion to Tate, who begged for her life and that of her unborn baby before Atkins viciously stabbed her to death and wrote the words “Pig” on a door with Tate’s blood.
It was years before Atkins expressed remorse for the nightmarish killings. And the family of Tate and other victims remain adamantly opposed to Atkins’ release.
In some circumstances, it might be appropriate for the state to show compassion to a prisoner at the end of life. It depends on the case. On some level, perhaps Atkins deserves a sense of Christian forgiveness and release. But I think a sense of justice calls for her to die in prison for her horrendous crimes.
What do you think, bloggers?
In a big policy reversal, President Bush this week authorized a top State Department diplomat to attend upcoming nuclear negotiations between Iran and the European Union.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States would be there “to listen, not to negotiate,” but it’s still a major change from the administration’s position that it wouldn’t participate in even preliminary meetings until Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program.
Just a few months ago, Bush was calling Barack Obama’s willingness to meet with Iran “appeasement.”
“I am disappointed with the president’s decision to veto this health care bill, and I am compelled to make a stand in support of our seniors,” Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, said about voting to override President Bush’s veto of a Medicare funding bill. The House voted 383-41 to override the veto, while the Senate voted 70-26. The only member of the Kansas delegation who didn’t support the bill was Sen. Sam Brownback, who has accused Democrats of playing politics.
“They sound so elitist,” famed cartoonist Art Spiegelman said of the liberals decrying the New Yorker’s Obama cover. “The essence of what they’re saying is, ‘I get it, but I don’t trust the people in Kansas to get it.’ But isn’t that what the whole hope and change thing is supposed to be about? That they will get it.”
On the same theme — that Kansans are incapable of recognizing satire — Washington Post columnist Philip Kennicott wrote: “The cover, like so many self-deprecating, wryly funny, overly self-referential New Yorker covers before it, is just another prism through which New Yorker readers confirm something that is true and easily caricatured at the same time: They are an elite, a minority, and while they might be more educated or sophisticated or adept at the play of humor, they will always be outvoted by Texas. And Kansas. And the rest of the states beyond reach of the A train. The cover says as much about the political influence of Manhattan as it does about the prejudice of the rubesoisie.”
“As the other woman in the vice-presidential derby, Sebelius is often regarded as a road-company version of Hillary Clinton, a pale reflection of the real thing.” — Salon writer Walter Shapiro, who also described the Kansas governor as “a passionate advocate of political moderation, as oxymoronic as that may seem”
