It looks like Rick Perry put an innocent man to death and then quashed an investigation on the matter. The awful truth is that this probably helps him in the Republican primary and makes no difference for the general election.
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[…] DougJ points out that Rick Perry probably put an innocent man to death, then prevented an investigation that threatened to uncover his innocence. […]
lacp
Yes, but he has good hair, so shut up.
schrodinger's cat
@lacp: I don’t see what’s so special about his hair.
cleek
didn’t bother nobody that W mocked the condemned.
when measured by the things they claim to care about, people are fucking disgusting, in general.
Judas Escargot
Just imagine how much damage he’ll be able to do as President.
gogol's wife
“It looks like”? Doesn’t everybody know this already?
danimal
I think this one will hurt Perry in the general election. I realize we are all supposed to be negative nellies and think that Americans are immune to reason and empathy, but there is still a moral pulse beating in the American body politic.
It just doesn’t beat in the GOP anymore.
evinfuilt
You missed the “and then got re-elected”. This was good news for Perry then, and will be again.
gogol's wife
@cleek:
When I read about what he said about Karla Faye Tucker, it literally (and I mean literally) made me sick to my stomach. I blissfully can no longer remember what it was, I just remember the sensation. I think he imitated her voice or something.
Brian
Yea, but he had to have done something because as we know if you did nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about. Right?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@gogol’s wife:
It was something like, “What’s she gonna say? ‘Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.'”
Big Baby DougJ
@gogol’s wife:
I don’t feel like I’m enough of an expert to say for sure.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ ”
“What was her answer?” I wonder.
“Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.”
Dennis SGMM
The law n’ order types will likely say that the condemned man deserved death anyway for other crimes that he may have committed. The rest of the public will just shrug their shoulders.
bkny
republican primaries — hell, the general election.
Zifnab
This is something of an old story by now, but I guess it could be relevant in the general if Democratic Leadership wasn’t made of fail.
jibeaux
Perry’s been talking today about how he doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet. I guess Willingham’s is technically in the ground.
I recommend the David Grant story about that whole sordid thing very highly.
Jay B.
I wonder how many people who are rotting in Gitmo are getting the same treatment. Which is totally different of course, because they can’t speak English.
Dennis SGMM
C’mon people, we gotta’ look forward – not backwards.
jwest
If Obama’s numbers fall any lower, he may just follow Perry’s lead and do a few executions himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife:
“Please don’t kill me”
The truly astonishing thing is that he said this in an interview with, I believe it was, Tucker Carlson, who reported it. The deserting coward’s arrogance is that great, that he’d do such a thing in front of a guy interviewing him, albeit one who could be expected to be sympathetic to him.
gogol's wife
@jwest:
You are disgusting.
gogol's wife
@Villago Delenda Est:
Right, I was trying to remember who wrote the article. I remembered that it was someone improbable, but not that it was Tucker Carlson. Wow. ETA: I guess it wasn’t an article but an interview, but I read it as a text.
Comrade Dread
It won’t hurt him.
1. People can’t reconcile the fact that police and prosecutors make mistakes or act in a fashion that benefits their career with justice a secondary concern with their belief that police and prosecutors are the good guys.
2. The conservative mind refuses to consider that if government is inefficient, corrupt, and untrustworthy, then so is the legal system.
3. The old maxim: Better that a 100 guilty go free than 1 innocent man go to prison (or to his death), makes you a pussy liberal pansy who wants criminals to get off on technicalities (Read, the few remaining Constitutional protections that haven’t been eviscerated by the Supreme Court and its endless deference to the Executive and Legislative branches on the war on drugs and terror.)
aisce
did this post go back in time?
i guess we know the answer to the question, “does dougj read ta-nehisi coates?” you’re missing out, amigo.
danimal
@evinfuilt: Perry markedly under-perfomed in the last election when compared to the generic Republican. There have even been recent polls showing Obama beating Perry in Texas (won’t actually happen, but it demonstrates that the man is not that popular in his home state).
If the GOP nominates Perry (and I think they will), they can kiss the industrial midwest goodbye. OH, MI, WI, and even IN have seen the impact of asshole executives in vivid detail for at least a year and they won’t want to hire one for president.
ETA: You can probably add PA to the list as well, if it suits your geographic understanding.
Linda Featheringill
The solution is to do away with the death penalty.
El Tiburon
If you recall – there was a lot of discussion about George W. Bush when he was governor and his record on the death penalty.
I think it was shown that Alberto Gonzales (wow, fun blast from the past) and W. spent about 15 minutes “reviewing” death penalty files before stamping it a go.
A certain thought process exists here in Texas: “If they’re in prison, then they must be guilty of something…so hit the switch.”
Roger Moore
It seems to me that this is a good opportunity for a 527 campaign by an anti-death penalty group. It’s a great chance for them to raise the profile of one of the strongest arguments against capital punishment, that even an apparently open-and-shut case can turn out to have deep flaws that only show up later. They can use it to criticize the death penalty with the attack on Perry as a convenient byproduct.
Big Baby DougJ
@aisce:
I realize it’s an old story. I don’t see what that means we should ignore it now that Perry is running for president.
I don’t read any of the Atlantic blogs. If I were read them, I’d read TNC and Fallows.
srv
But has Perry had anyone tortured? When are they going to debate about using enhanced interrogation for all crimes?
jwest
Gogol’s wife,
It would be naïve not to think there are people at the White House running the numbers and getting focus group feedback on the possibility of Obama burnishing his image with “law and order” independents by way of a couple federal executions.
DJAnyReason
I don’t know that it won’t matter in the general. The 30 second spot featuring Willingham’s mother virtually writes itself.
mk3872
Plus, since Obama didn’t repeal DADT quickly enough and didn’t personally kiss Dan Choi’s ass, that sort of thing won’t be enough to bring out whiny-baby liberals.
maye
My current fantasy is Brian Williams asks him a question about social security as a ponzi scheme at the upcoming debate, and his answer is something that can be played on a loop for three solid days. But I’m probably getting ahead of myself. I don’t him to crash and burn prior to the general election campaign.
drkrick
@cleek:
Bush’s mockery of Karla Faye Tucker was appalling, but she was admittedly guilty of quite a brutal murder and was appealing for clemency because her subsequent conversion to Christianity was supposed to give her a get out of jail free card. I don’t see why that should be compelling for anyone who doesn’t object to the death penalty across the board.
The Willingham case, if people know about it, will be a a lot bigger issue. Supposedly someone really told a focus group in Texas that it takes balls to kill an innocent man. Maybe so, but that attitude is offensive even to most conservatives (and even a few Tea Partiers). I predict it’s a least a small problem even in the GOP primaries and pretty significant in the unlikely event he makes it to the general.
Han's Big Snark Solo
It may not hurt him in the Republican Primaries, but I think it will in the General Election.
And who knows, it may well hurt him in the primaries too. Why? Because Perry’s victim was a white man.
Zifnab
@El Tiburon:
Hardly. More like “If they’re poor, fuck’m. Texans enjoy hearing about ‘bad’ people getting the chair and I’ve got an election coming up.”
kindness
I suspect it WILL make a difference in the general election. And not in a positive way for Ricky.
I really should check my sarcasm/snark meter though.
maye
I’m also having a premonition about a Perry scandal involving his personal proclivities (of the John Edwards variety) coming to light in the not too distant future. I don’t have any real information, just going by his looks.
Linda Featheringill
@El Tiburon: #26
True. But the campaign to have the prisoner released also arose in Texas.
cathyx
What absolutely disgusting behavior. You know he has to be a psychopath to be able to sleep at night.
MattF
Perry, though, has a generalized nastiness– it’s a feature of his personality. I think you’ve got to find lots of stories like this (and I’m sure there are lots of them) and just list them, and repeat them over and over.
Cris (without an H)
Not even Megan McArdle?
JCT
The basic question that of course none of these fuckwits pretending to be journalists will ask is quite simple “Gov Perry, if you were so sure of the evidence that resulted in this execution, why did you shuffle the investigative committee and by the way, where did the final expert’s report go? It was already paid for…..”
Fat fucking chance of that ever being asked.
Amir Khalid
I think of that scene from Schindler’s List where Amon Goeth stands at a balcony and shoots at Jews in his concentration camp for shits and giggles. Goeth was a monster. So are George Walker Bush and Rick Perry. There’s just no other word for it.
catclub
@drkrick: has there ever been a jailhouse conversion, after which th person says that becuase of their conversion they now understand they should be punished?
It should be the standard catch-22, if they now believe they should be punished, then pardon them, but if they have apparently converted only to save their skin, then go ahead with the execution.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perry will play this one down easily; shout “I killed that innocent feller’ because IT FUCKING ROCKED, HELL YA!” and dry hump the podium while shooting his gun off into the air. Let’s No Drama Obama match that.
Cris (without an H)
That’s one way that Texas isn’t exceptional. Our entire culture is pretty happy to presume guilt.
But one would think it would be compelling to a chief executive who wears his Christianity on his sleeve, who believes his own conversion wipes clean his past errors.
HyperIon
@gogol’s wife:
If you’re paying attention, yes.
Martin
Well, that’s one job created and one less unemployed. Who says the GOP doesn’t have a jobs plan?
Big Baby DougJ
@Cris (without an H):
I stopped visiting her blog a while ago…but sometimes people email stuff she wrote and read it
Trinity
@Big Baby DougJ: You really should read TNC. Seriously. You are missing one of the most intelligent, insightful, brutally honest bloggers out there. Well worth every word no matter if you agree with him or not.
shortstop
It’s an old story, but one that needs to be told over and over and over because most people outside blogs still don’t know it. I don’t think it’ll do nearly as much damage in the general as some of you do, but it’ll do some. The “It takes balls to kill an innocent man” comment from the focus-group respondent is so beyond the pale that even some law ‘n’ order types will have trouble with it.
Cris (without an H)
I would direct that question to Sister Helen Prejean. Not sure about actual cases, but the dramatic turning point of her Dead Man Walking is when Poncelet accepts that he can’t escape execution and has to ask forgiveness of the victim’s family and of God.
drkrick
@catclub: I’m sure there are jailhouse conversions. I’m not sure those who believe in capital punishment (I’m not among them) believe the conversion wipes out the offense. I certainly can’t imagine being in a situation where governors and prison officials are asked to judge the sincerity of such conversions with an automatic cancellation of the execution for those considered genuine – that would be a can of worms from Arrakis.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Huh, this Perry fellow seems more liberal then us liberals at certain angles.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/09/01/309632/flashback-perry-proposed-a-bi-national-health-insurance-plan-with-mexico-in-2001/
Basically he wanted to set up single payer heal insurance with Mexico in 2001…er what? That sounds like the kind of Americo stuff the Hard Right is paranoid about. And Perry is now their dream boy, huh?
Martin
And I hereby welcome our future President James Elizondo Mountain Dew Richard Perry. I hear he has a 3 point plan that will fix everything.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@maye: I think you are right.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it involved his former chief of staff…
But what do I know? I’m just a political junkie that lives in Austin…
seanindc
/civilization
Cris (without an H)
The Willingham story did make one of those primetime news/drama shows, like Dateline. That still doesn’t make it a household word, but at least the mainstream news is aware of it.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Martin: Does it involve “Brawno”?
Eloctrolytes!!!!
Punchy
OT:
Never saw this coming…./snark
Damn, she IS the dumbest broad on the planet.
schrodinger's cat
@Big Baby DougJ: Good thought you couldn’t quit her.
Jay B.
Where else was is supposed to happen? I did a lot of study and work on the Texas death penalty and of course it’s a travesty of justice (even Ann Richards, who was an out-and-out liberal in nearly every respect was a big supporter and her record was appalling on it), but there are plenty of dedicated people even in that hellhole who are opposed to it. I left long before Willingham’s case made news, but it’s not the only one for sure. Gary Graham was a cause celebre of sorts — undeniably a career criminal, he was put to death for a murder based on the eyewitness testimony of a woman who “saw” him in a parking lot, at night, without her glasses while simultaneously, he was robbing a store on the other side of Houston.
The whole insane contraption they have down there ensures innocent people will be murdered by the state. Oh well!
Roger Moore
@drkrick:
I can easily imagine almost the exact opposite thought process. The conversion doesn’t clear them with the state, but it does square them with God, so they can now approve of the execution with a clean conscience knowing that the condemned will go to heaven instead of hell.
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
Karla Faye Tucker was guilty of a brutal murder. That she found God while on death row, after committing her crime, didn’t mitigate her guilt at all. So as much as I hate the death sentence, I have to say that Bush had a valid argument for refusing to commute hers.
But he had no right to mock Tucker’s plea for her life. That was definitely not the action of a decent human being.
Violet
I thought this was old news. Did something new come out about it today?
Dave
There is a difference between mocking a condemned woman and killing an innocent man. The first is puerile, childish and repugnant. The second is a god-damned crime against humanity, especially when you squash the investigation. I can’t see how Perry can avoid the fact he killed an innocent man in a general election.
cleek
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
makes sense to me.
Perry hasn’t given a national speech or been through a single debate. nobody actually knows much of anything about him. but for some reason everyone is tripping over themselves to anoint him the winner.
i suspect that’s just because they’re bored with the rest of the pack. and i expect his numbers will plummet, once he has to defend himself, his record, and his proposals against the 40 or 50 other wingnuts trying to get the nomination.
Legalize
Was the executed man a brown fella? Or was he a proper American? If he was the later, then this might hurt Perry in the general. Otherwise, I doubt it. After all, it takes balls to kill an innocent man.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Perry didn’t put anyone to death. A Judge and Jury did. Perry just didn’t stop it. At least be accurate.
cleek
@Dave:
Bush killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of innocent Iraqis. we reelected him.
people vote with their gut, not with their morals.
ant
@Punchy:
i lmfao when read this;
“When I see her next week, I’ll straighten her out about that,” West said, according to a report in the Palm Beach Post.
cleek
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
let’s be even more accurate. the judge and jury didn’t do it either; the executioner did.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@Big Baby DougJ:
Really? Then why do you sometimes comment on McAdle’s blog? Do you just comment there without reading the post?
The Spy Who Loved Me
@cleek:
True. It is important to be accurate.
Judas Escargot
OT: AZ GOP stays classy.
sherparick
I believe the Perry Campaign is going to adopt “It takes balls to execute an innocent man” as its unofficial motto. I already sends a thrill up the leg of Politico and the political reporters of the WaPo and NY Times who set the “narrative” of the campaign. The narrative of “Perry, bold and gutsy “populist” for the people versus weak, wishy-washy, banker friendly and secret Muslim socialist Obama.”
This going to be a real interesting if old Perry gets elected in 2012. And the Obama administration seems to be doing all it can to accomplish that result (see latest fiasco with Obama giving his enemies another opportunity to make him look like a weak, ineffectual blowharddand weak, by asking for a joint session of Congress to make a speech on jobs – rescuing the Republicans just as they were making themselves look ridiculous over disaster aid on Irene and putting a bunch of little ideas in a big speech that will be forgotten in a month and have no chance getting through Congress because the Republicans in the House and Senate will not pass anything, even if he came out for a 0% corporate tax rate, Obama proposes. When Martin Wolf goes off on Obama in the Financial Times about his fantasies about his deadly enemies in the Republican Party, you can’t say it is just the Firebaggers who discontented.
Roger Moore
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
I’d put a lot more blame on the prosecutor and expert witness who presented the jury with bogus evidence than on the jury themselves. And since Perry had the power to stop the execution, he’s just as guilty as anyone else in the process. Doubly so because he interfered with investigating the process after the fact, something that nobody else mentioned here had the power to do.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the thread comments, but I think the Cameron Todd Willingham case would be a huge problem in the general.
It resonates, and the refusal to allow an investigation goes to character.
I think the Willingham case could be Perry’s “Terry Schiavo” moment.
Remember how well THAT went over with the general public.
Dave
@cleek:
Except those people see the Iraqi deaths as casualties of war. And it’s not them…it’s people far away. And please don’t take that as my view.
Whereas this is an innocent American who was railroaded into an execution. A lot of voters who may not give a damn about the former will hesitate about the latter because there is a situation they can actually put themselves into.
shortstop
Even though there will be some serious revulsion at the knowingly-killing-an-innocent-man portion of this story, and not just among us bleeding hearts, don’t underestimate the ability of pro-death penalty types to be okay with the idea of slaughtering the non-guilty. They will simply assert, over and over and ignoring all evidence to the contrary, that Willingham was indeed guilty. Here in Illinois, when then-Gov. George Ryan instituted the DP moratorium, the refrain from the parallel reality crowd was that 1) innocent people just don’t get convicted, 2) okay, if a few do, there’s always time for the justice system to catch it so no one is wrongly executed, 3) well, all right, if a couple of guys are wrongly executed, that’s an okay price to pay to get the guilty ones.
People all over Illinois said this stuff with a straight face after being told that more than half the people who’d been on IL’s Death Row since the DP was reinstituted in the 1970s had been exonerated. That number was an astonishing 18 out of 30, if I remember correctly. There is no argument or fact about the deaths of innocents or the imperfectness of the justice system that can penetrate many people’s deeply-held belief in the DP. Just the other day a local acquaintance, a normally fair-minded person, told me as we were discussing this very subject, “I’ve heard all the arguments; I’m just not convinced.” I said, “Convinced that those 18 exonerees were really innocent, or convinced that it even matters that they would have wrongly lost their lives?” She just looked at me: “Let’s change the subject.” Mind blowing.
Elizabelle
@Cris (without an H):
This.
SensesFail
HAHAHA! Outstanding visual!
MattR
@Elizabelle: I am hoping that the adage “It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup” will come into play here. It is possible to “justify” the execution by saying mistakes were made by people with good intentions. But it isn’t possible to explain away Perry’s actions with the commission investigating the case.
joeyess
Okay….. and just how is this “news”? I’m not trying to be an asshole but this has been out there for quite some time now.
Ok. I’m an asshole.
Paul in KY
@Dave: He’s gonna say he wasn’t innocent.
Unfortunately there’s no video of the executed man playing blackjack in a casino when the crime occurred.
Linda Featheringill
@Legalize: #69
Average dirty white boy. Definitely lower class, of course.
I wondered the same thing when I first read about this some time ago and searched until I could find some pictures. He’s Anglo.
Violet
@MattR:
I agree. I think the coverup, the refusing to investigate, the replacing members on the commission, etc. will be the big problem. People see that as hiding something. What’s he hiding? Must be bad.
Paul in KY
@Dave: My last comment is in moderation due to gam1ng words.
Here is a bowlderized version: He’s gonna say he wasn’t innocent.
Unfortunately there’s no video of the executed man playing Name That Price in a game show when the crime occurred.
jibeaux
@Judas Escargot:
This was probably their backup fundraiser, after they couldn’t get the original out of the evidence locker.
Elizabelle
@Trinity:
Seconded and thirded re Ta Nehisi Coates. Spending time on his blog will totally illuminate history and interest you.
Got his site bookmarked, and link through to James Fallows off his page.
Thereby studiously avoiding McMegan, Jeffrey Goldberg and the other ship of fools.
(One non-fool: Steve Clemons)
Svensker
@Judas Escargot:
This is why despair seems like the best response most days.
cleek
@Dave:
i hope you’re right!
Cris (without an H)
@Legalize: The American public doesn’t need the accused to be a person of color in order to presume guilt, especially when dead children are involved. See: Anthony, Casey.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
The Pima County pukes are raffling off a Glock.
Roger Moore
@shortstop:
I think this is standard cognitive dissonance in action. People know the death penalty is important because they want to punish the guilty. They know that protecting the innocent is important because they don’t want to believe they’re involved in an unjust system. So when they’re presented evidence that their belief in the death penalty conflicts with their belief in not punishing the innocent, they ignore or excuse the problems with the death penalty so they can keep believing in both. It’s unfortunate that they can’t change their minds, but it’s almost expected, too.
Cris (without an H)
“I’d rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them.” — Chief Clancy Wiggum
Cris (without an H)
Christ, what a party of assholes.
Violet
@Roger Moore:
It can also be a process for those types of people. They may be in a “let’s change the subject” mode because they can’t process the cognitive dissonance and aren’t sure what to say. It can take time to change minds.
More discussion and examples of why the DP can result over and over in innocent people being put to death for a crime they didn’t commit can eventually convince people who have trouble jumping from one belief (“death penalty keeps us safer/is a good deterrent”) to another (“death penalty means innocent people die”). Not always of course. But it can work that way.
eemom
you know, this bullshit attitude is really getting old.
Who the fuck cares how OLD this story is? Who the fuck cares that SOME people won’t care?
And in the name of God, can WE stop repeating that sickening “takes balls” line??
Anyone who hasn’t read that New Yorker story needs to read it. As nearly as one can get to “beyond a reasonable doubt,” that man was INNOCENT beyond a reasonable doubt; he was crucified by the criminal justice system because he was dirt poor; the state of Texas turned a blind eye to the exculpatory evidence and fucking killed him anyway; this happened on Rick Perry’s watch; and Rick Perry has BLOOD ON HIS HANDS.
This absolutely needs to be said again and again and AGAIN until people DO get it.
And if you’re going to continue with this endless series of defeatist shit about “it won’t matter no matter what godawful thing Perry did” — honestly, why fucking bother?
I’m beginning to wonder if this is not just a game to you, just like it is to those you spend your life mocking.
slippy
@drkrick:
That has to be a planted response. Perry’s actions in the case of Willingham actually show the most craven, sniveling, chickenshit cowardice. He had his anonymous state apparatus carry out the execution of a man he refused to even consider as anything other than a disposable set piece in his Potempkin governorship, and then like a massive, quivering pussy he shut down the investigation of the entire affair.
Anyone who thinks Perry has “balls” needs his head examined. Perry is an incredible coward.
Nemesis
I. Am. Speechless.
jibeaux
@Roger Moore:
I agree with that. And people want to believe that the system is o.k. They want to, very reasonably, believe that if their house goes up in an awful accidental explosion and kills their children, that they aren’t going to be arrested, tried, convicted for murder, and executed. They need to have some faith that the system is basically o.k., and they really do need it because if you don’t have it then you don’t have a very functional society. Witness the way crime and society interact in marginal neighborhoods, Tijuana, any place where the residents have a well-grounded lack of faith in the police and prosecutors. The point we need to get people to is acknowledging the limitations and failures of the criminal justice system, and supporting all the checks on those limitations and failures that are feasible, like the various innocence projects, DNA testing, appeals, etc.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: @Violet: Good points both.
@Nemesis: Lays it all out there neatly, though, doesn’t it? That line is what will inspire the abject horror and revulsion that Perry will have to deflect, convert, explain away, minimize. It is a million times more effective for the anti-DP and anti-Perry causes than any dry discussion of legal process could ever be.
JPL
Doesn’t Willingham’s ex-wife believe he murdered her children. Fox news would be happy to have her on thanking Gov. Perry for ridding the world of “the monster”.
Cris (without an H)
Far from it. I think it needs to be repeated over, and over, and over. It is a perfect distillation of what is wrong with Rick Perry, with the death penalty, with the patriarchy.
Judas Escargot
@jibeaux:
Real shame they couldn’t score any of the skull fragments. Bet it would have pulled in 5x as much money at auction.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@JPL: I wouldn’t know, but if she did, she was probably relying on the same evidence that Perry was. We’d have to see what she says now.
Maude
@eemom:
This.
eemom
also too, even I — who will barely acknowledge most republicans as fellow human beings — don’t think badly enough of republicans as a group to suppose that executing an innocent man would fucking HELP anyone in the primaries, no matter how much you delight in repeating that one sick fuck’s “balls” line. Jesus Christ.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Judas Escargot: Both sides do it.
eemom
@Cris (without an H):
Rick Perry didn’t say that. One single sick fuck did, and for some reason you all are hellbent on immortalizing him.
slippy
@eemom: I know. It’s pathetic. I get the same response when I bring up Perry’s secessionist talk, which is by every definition in the book blatant treason, and I get this glib “oh, well, nobody is really going to care,” attitude.
Frankly I think the right-wing trolls are out in FORCE trying to downplay every horrible thing that Perry represents, that would utterly turn off the American public, because someone (Koch brothers, is that you?) wants the most incompetent, easily-manipulated nitwit in the Oval Office. Bush was just not stupid, venal, and careless enough of a douchebag for these guys. They want the WORST America has to offer.
Well people, Rick Perry is the ABSOLUTE WORST America has to offer. You thought Palin was, you thought Bachmann was, but I gotta say as far as barrel spelunking goes, Perry wins hands-down. He is beneath us all.
Redshift
@shortstop: It’s like the case in VA a few years ago, where (IIRC) a death row inmate was exonerated based on DNA evidence only after the state was sued, who had had appeals denied because state law says you can’t introduce new evidence after 21 days, and the state fought against making the DNA sample available or making any effort to review the case. The GOP governor insisted there was no need to make any changes because fact that he had eventually gotten a pardon after eighteen years shows “the system worked.”
eemom
@JPL:
Willingham’s ex-wife — and everyone who knew him — fiercely denied he would have been capable of that crime at the time it happened. If she “changed her mind” later, it was because she was persuaded to believe the pack of lies and junk science that constituted the state’s “case” against him.
Again, read the fucking article. It is ALL THERE.
JPL
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Google to the rescue…This is from the Dallas Paper last October
link Fox News would squash any attempt to hurt the repub nominee.
JPL
@eemom: I read the article when it was first released. There is no doubt in my mind, that Perry executed an innocent man. My point has to do with how the republicans will fight this.
bemused
@shortstop:
There’s a chapter “Law and Disorder” in the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) written by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson that describes the refusal of prosecutors and police officers to believe people they arrested/prosecuted were actually found to be innocent with irrefutable evidence turning up sometimes decades after convictions. Not only does that not convince them they were wrong, they double down. Fascinating book.
fasteddie9318
@eemom:
It hasn’t hurt, and that’s perverse enough.
Samara Morgan
doesnt matter.
he opposes abortion and endorses creationism, and the panty-sniff test is going to come out clean.
however….the conservative elite are not crazy about him.
slippy
@eemom:
No, Perry didn’t say that. No, Rick Perry ACTUALLY MURDERED AN INNOCENT MAN with the full apparatus of the state justice system at his disposal, AND WITH UNQUESTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE of that man’s INNOCENCE.
So, I’m sorry if it seems like we’re being unnecessarily harsh towards him, but if you trouble yourself to recall why a focus group would claim that executing an innocent man “takes balls,” you’d remember that we ARE TALKING ABOUT RICK PERRY EXECUTING A FUCKING INNOCENT MAN. Which is about 1,000,000s030265020624097q84908t7pdas times more horrible even than running around cock-crowing about it.
Maybe that point escaped you?
Satanicpanic
I think it was Amanda Marcotte that pointed out- it doesn’t take balls to execute an innocent man. That’s the path of least resistance. It takes balls to admit that you’re wrong. Perry didn’t have the balls to do that.
eric
@eemom: because for many of us, the comment crystalizes the indifference that must be in Perry’s heart to knowlingly kill an innocent man and cover it up. The focus group individual is a metaphor for Perry’s own depraved soul.
Cris (without an H)
Fair enough. I’m sure there are enough things Perry actually said that we can hang on him, without resorting to a guilt-by-association-thrice-removed. I’ll be happy to forget the odious anonymous focus-group phrase.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Frankly I think the right-wing trolls are out in FORCE trying to downplay every horrible thing that Perry represents, that would utterly turn off the American public, because someone (Koch brothers, is that you?) wants the most incompetent, easily-manipulated nitwit in the Oval Office.
Are we sure Osama bin Laden is dead?
trollhattan
But I read that Willingham wasn’t a nice guy, so it wasn’t a huge loss to kill him anyway. (What’s that expression about letting God sort them out?) As to disbanding the investigation, that’s just living up to his committment to smaller gummint.
I kan haz campaign staff position nao?
Dennis SGMM
@eemom:
And who will say it, again and again? The commenters on this blog? There’s a slim-to-none chance that the media will make anything of it. There’s about the same chance that any Democratic pols will.
I’d say that it’s more realism than defeatism to assert that executing an innocent man will harm Perry very much if at all. Yes, Perry did a terrible thing. You may be overlooking the fact that Republicans like politicians who do terrible things. The squishy middle will remain engaged with their own concerns until just about election time. By then Perry may well be established as the rough-hewn, job-creatin’, gun totin’ successful three term governor of Texas. That stinks on ice but that’s the way it goes these days.
sneezy
@Linda Featheringill:
I agree, but it ain’t gonna happen in Texas.
Judas Escargot
@slippy:
Do you ever talk about this stuff with real, non-internet people over 40?
They don’t care. They roll their eyes at you. Then they snicker at the hysterical liberal who takes things too seriously. Then they drive their tax-deductible work vehicle or free Medicare scooter to the polls and vote for whatever bag of sh!t happens to have the ‘R’ next to its name that year.
We have no real media anymore. We arguably haven’t had a functional government since last November (and won’t for at least another year). We have a public that just seems to get meaner and stupider year after year.
If you see a beautiful shiny pony in there somewhere, feel free to point it out.
Cheryl from Maryland
The story in the New Yorker has the resonance and pain of a Johnny Cash song. No figure in Texas government comes off as anything other than incompetent, heartless and corrupt, especially the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
It is going to leave a mark, even if it is old news. Because there was no crime; Willingham’s daughters died in an accidental fire that Texas law enforcement interpreted as arson/murder using unscientific fire folklore, convicting and then killing him.
shortstop
@Cris (without an H): Or things that he actually did that we can hang on him–things to which the comment in question refers. For example, purposely killing an innocent man.
eemom
@slippy:
If you think I’m coming down on anybody for being too harsh on Rick Perry, you haven’t read a word I wrote.
My point is just that that “balls” comment was the utterly disgusting utterance of one depraved individual and it makes me sick to hear it repeated as some kind of ridiculous evidence of DougJ’s bullshit thesis here that killing an innocent man is something that will HELP Perry win votes.
Whatever else Perry is, he’s not fucking stupid enough to wear Willingham’s execution as a badge of honor.
Gus
No, it probably helps him in the general, too. Americans are a bloodthirsty lot.
JR
@eemom: Actually, he is. He’s done so several times. (He never has answered why he thinks the evidence against Willingham was so solid but the evidence against Ernest Willis–who was convicted using the exact same bullshit analysis but who was exonerated before his execution date–was less reliable).
But as others have noted, Perry had limited authority in the Willingham case. The best he could have done (and what he should have done if he had any human decency or intelligence whatsoever) would have been to issue a 30-day reprieve for the state board of pardons and paroles to reconsider the case. The real crime was the cover-up: he went to enormous lengths to block the state’s inquiry into the execution and the fraudulent case against Willingham. He did that with the full knowledge of what an inquiry would reveal, and how damaging it might be for his political prospects. He knew it was wrong, he did it anyway: he is unfit for office.
eemom
there is something here I just don’t get.
I mean there is literally nobody who has greater contempt for republicans, the stupidity of the electorate, and the complicity of the emmessemm than I do. I just don’t think it’s possible. I hate these people, their idiocy and their evil with the fury of a thousand suns, and I am not optimistic that anything is going to change.
But I just can’t conceive of looking at the Willingham story, and reacting with an “aw fuck it, nobody’s gonna care.” I just can’t understand that mindset. To see that outrage, that grotesque perversion of justice that is standard issue in the criminal justice system in this country and not want to call it out for what it is, even if NOBODY listens?
Again, if you are at that level of nihilism, I don’t see why you even bother posting on a fucking blog, purporting to actually believe in something.
rikyrah
I don’t care.
Cameron Todd Willingham needs to be brought up as often as possible.
PERIOD
Cris (without an H)
Sorry to belabor this, but I’d suggest that the reason so many of us have seized on the comment is that we feel like it represents a broader sentiment than that of “one depraved individual.” I can imagine my dad saying it, for instance. (He used to express admiration for Dick Cheney, claiming that it was a virtue that Cheney did what he wanted and “didn’t give a shit” what anybody thought of it.)
eemom
As an example of just, you know, giving a shit.
David Hunt
@cathyx:
Doubtful. I think it’s a added benefit from when he sold his soul for power.
eemom
@Cris (without an H):
not giving a shit what people think IS, in certain instances, an admirable quality, imo. (And for anyone who thinks I would include Dick Cheney in those instances, a preemptive GFY.)
Expressing admiration for KILLING AN INNOCENT MAN is a long, long, loooooong fucking way from admiring someone for not giving a shit what people think.
Dennis SGMM
@eemom:
Because innocent people are executed in every death penalty state? How many prisoners in how many states have been exonerated by the Innocence Project? Yet the death penalty remains on the books. Even my state, California, maintains the death penalty despite miscarriages of justice and the fact that the costs of condemning someone are astronomical compared to sentencing him or her to life without parole. Your ire is appropriate, now all we have to do is get around the All-American tradition of Lex Talionis.
Judas Escargot
@eemom:
By all means, call it out as loudly and as often as you can.
Just don’t make the mistake of assuming that most voters are as well-informed and decent as you are. Evidence is mounting that they aren’t.
I don’t see how pointing out the creeping, infectious nihilism that’s been rotting the culture for at least 15 years –and to which I see no perceptible end– makes me the nihilist.
eemom
@Dennis SGMM:
my “ire” is not about the death penalty in the abstract.
My “ire” is about this particular man, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was framed and murdered by the state of Texas for a crime he didn’t commit.
My “ire” is about the horrifying facts reported in that New Yorker article.
johnsmith1882
@Dennis SGMM:
@Judas Escargot:
this, and that.
Does anyone else remember the gleam in W Bush’s eyes when asked about the record number of executions performed in Texas during his tenure, during one of the Debates in 2000? He half-smiled as if thinking ‘yeah, that was great wasn’t it’, and then had to recover, even though his answer did nothing to diminish how awesome he thought all that was.
Point being, nobody gives a sh!t. Not that ‘knowingly executed an innocent man’ shouldn’t be the first words just to right of Rick Perry-R on our tv’s, I just don’t think it matters to the supposed undecideds in this country. Being associated with someone who came on a chubby intern’s dress? That matters. Killing people? Yawn. They probably deserved it anyway.
Dennis SGMM
@eemom:
I wasn’t belittling you so drop the scare quotes. Rage all you want to about Cameron Todd Willingham. He has a lot of less publicized company.
sgaile-beairt
John Grisham’s “The Confession” (http://www.jgrisham.com/the-confession/) features a thinly-veiled version of Gov. Goodhair and refers A LOT to the Willingham case in the course of the plot, which is about an attempt to exonerate an innocent man…in TX.
It’s not a terribly optimistic story.
burnspbesq
@Dennis SGMM:
“He has a lot of less publicized company.”
The solution to that problem is publicity, not cynicism.
shortstop
@burnspbesq: Having a bit of the latter helps one target the former, though. IOW, they’re not mutually exclusive.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I just got around to reading this thread and I have to say that the amount of cynicism on display is breathtaking. If people truly believe that their fellow Americans are as stupid, venal, and depraved as they are suggesting, I don’t understand why they bother. If we as a people are that bad, then everything is fucking hopeless and we may as well mount the A-bomb with our cowboy hats. Jesus fuck. Yeah, there are some assholes out there, but, in a country of 300+ million, is that really a surprise?
Big Baby DougJ
@eemom:
I don’t think Republicans will care, I think they’ll hold it to his credit if anything. Sorry, that’s what I believe. And I don’t think it will get a lot of attention in a national campaign because the people who would care are already voting Democrat.
Do you really think I am insanely cynical to believe this?
slightly-peeved
If someone doesn’t care that he killed an innocent man, tell them that he wanted Texas to secede. If they don’t care about that, tell them that he’s going to end social security. If they don’t care about that, tell them he proposed a govt. Takeover of healthcare in Texas and campaigned for Gore. Tailoring the message to the audience is key to any communication, and there’s something about Perry anyone can loathe.
Omnes Omnibus
@slightly-peeved: He just gives and gives, doesn’t he?
Ecks
Y’know, if I was a dem strategist in 2004 I would have bought adds playing continuous loops of the footage of Rumsfeld shaking a young Saddam Hussein’s hand. Saddam was considered to be the Devil at the time (most particularly by conservatives), and there’s Rummy shaking the ol’ debil firmly by the hand. Television loves imagery, and that there is really concrete solid imagery.
But if the Dems couldn’t make that stick then, I can’t see that this one would have great legs in 2012 either.
shortstop
@Big Baby DougJ: Here’s why you’re not overly cynical: because for many or most Republicans to care, they’d have to first openly accept the fact that Perry and the prosecution willfully ushered an innocent man to his death. If they could or would do that, of course they’d balk at Perry’s actions. But as a bunch of us have discussed in these comments, the right takes all kinds of steps to avoid having to see that cognitive dissonance. They will never even get to the point at which they consider whether Willingham might have been innocent.
It’s no longer cynical to assume that there is no position the left can take that will not immediately be knee-jerk rejected by the right, even when the liberal policy/position will strongly benefit the rejecters. Republicans won’t be viewing this case in the same terms that we are. They will have an entirely separate and parallel version of events that has zero crossover with what actually happened.
Gus
@Omnes Omnibus: You misunderstand. I don’t believe Americans are that stupid, venal and depraved, I think people are that stupid, venal and depraved. Actually, I’m sure most people would be outraged by the Willingham story, just not enough to actually do something about it. People are in the main extremely selfish. Ever hear of Kitty Genovese?
SiubhanDuinne
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Okay, that was fucking beautiful.
Paul in KY
@Dennis SGMM: I think the problem here is that is is not 100% cut & dried that Mr. Willingham was innocent.
There’s alot of circumstancial evidence that he didn’t do it. However, there’s no unimpeachable video evidence that he was somewhere else when the crime went down.
Thus, Perry & his goons can say the dude was guilty.