Ignored Insight

Speaking of clueless pundits, Richard Cohen inflicted another attack recently.

In light of Dubya’s criticism of the hangings in Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his accomplices (and if there’s something Dubya actually knows about, it’s executions, given his record as former Texas governor), Cohen recalled how Dubya responded in a 2000 presidential debate about whether or not capital punishment was a deterrent. With typical petulance, Bush responded, when told that there’s no evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent, that “the other side (presumably those opposed to capital punishment) can’t prove that it isn’t.”

Hmm…

Well, in response, here’s a link that provides information on crime deterrence in states that have legalized the death penalty versus those that have not. And while I’ll admit that these statistics may not be the most current ones available, I think this at least presents some information that could be the basis for an informed and reasonable discussion on the issue (and I realize that automatically excludes Dubya’s participation).

Getting back to Cohen, he then takes this anecdote about President Nutball and uses it to show the precedent for Dubya’s irrational conduct of the Iraq war.

And I would say that Cohen is about six and a half years too late in making this observation for it to be of any actual use.

Oh, but Al Gore was all stiff and wooden, with focus-group-tested answers and his “Ozone Man” theories on global warming (which turned out to be absolutely correct) and his phony-looking earth-toned attire, as if those were supposed to be the issues that mattered. And Dubya was somehow OK because he was “down home” and “one of us.”

And isn’t Cohen the guy who said that “only fools and Frenchmen” would oppose the Iraq war anyway, and that violence would actually be “therapeutic”?