Executions not excessive, but prison is ...

Juxtaposition George W. as President commuting Scooter Libby's prison term as excessive in relation to George W. as Governor (of Texas) failing to commute egregious execution sentences. Quoting from a letter from a reader to the Editor in today's (Wednesday, July 4, 2007) NY Times regarding the Texas cases:

Some of these inmates had been represented by lawyers who slept during trials. Some were mentally retarded. Some were juveniles at the time they committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death.

In all these cases, Governor Bush refused to commute their sentences, saying that the inmates had had full access to the judicial system.

Or has Arianna Huffington wrote in her blog post for July 3:

You know, someone like George Bush, who, as Governor of Texas, said: "I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair." And none of those exceptions applied in this case.

It has become obvious that George W. has no core principles operating in support of equal justice under the law.

On this day, the 4th of July, it would be good for us to reacquaint ourselves with the works of John Adams—one of our nation's founders (our 1st Vice-President under George Washington and 2nd President with Thomas Jefferson as Vice-President)—on the responsibilities of leaders in a republic to protect the inalienable rights of its people ... equally.