Bush's Lack of Integrity Never Ceases to Amaze Me.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone but I'll blog about it anyway because I can, the reason most bloggers blog.

President Bush's merciful attitude toward Scooter Libby's sentence stands in direct contrast to the way he harshly condemned those sentenced to die when he was Governor of Texas. Many times, those convicted not only did not receive a fair trial but their case will go down in history as flagrant examples of unfairness. The Chicago Tribune reported, "In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial."

Bush's casualness and total disregard for the sanctity of human life can be clearly seen in the way the death penalty was administered in Texas when he was Governor. His answer to questions about holding the record for the Governor with the most executions (during his six years as governor, 152 people were executed) under his belt is reprehensible considering the facts. "I'm confident, that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts."

On the morning of May 6, 1997, Governor George W. Bush signed his name to a confidential three-page memorandum from his legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY. It was the twenty-ninth time a death-row inmate’s plea for clemency had been denied in the twenty-eight months since Bush had been sworn in. In this case Bush’s signature led, shortly after 6:00 P.M. on the very same day, to the execution of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded thirty-three-year-old man with the communication skills of a seven-year-old…

…During Bush’s six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas—a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one.