I am not a big fan of the Clintons, and am opposed to the death penalty on general principle. If we are going to using the metric that executing a black person is racist, however, then we are painting most of the nation's governors with a pretty broad brush.

It would have been better if he didn't belong to an all-white country club, but I don't recall him exactly advertising the fact.

Like Hitchens said, it's only "racist" if a white Republican presidential candidate did it.

ProudInfidel is sort of right. Executing someone who has no ability to comprehend that he's about to be executed, likely was of no help to the defense counsel in his own defense, and is generally a little dumber than a chimpanzee is unconscionable regardless of the ethnicity of the prisoner, as long as we wish to regard ourselves as a moderately civilized society. It's disgusting.

Clinton did it to look "tough on crime," over the recommended lenity of damn near everybody involved. If he'd done that to a really stupid white kid the outrage would have been politically damaging. However, a dead black murderer, even one that needs to be watered daily, is the bread and butter of "tough on crime" posturing. And yeah, that's racist.

The Democrats didn't call him on it, and THAT's racist, too. They sure as hell would have mentioned it if a Repubican had thrown the switch, which is at least a color-blind form of hypocrisy.

It is as racist as showing a picture of a deranged black man who raped a woman after stabing and tying up her boyfriend while being out on a prison furlough.

Woody:

It would have been better if he didn't belong to an all-white country club, but I don't recall him exactly advertising the fact.

So it is okay since he didn't advertise that he belonged to an all-white country club? Gee, wonder why he didn't advertise it since he was so sympathetic to the plight of the black people. You would think that he would have been fighting to get blacks in.

This wasn't a racial question. It was the question of "should you execute someone with a lobotomy who hasn't the faintist idea what is going on or why" True he gave the lobotomy to himself, but he was no longer a danger to anyone and had all but executed himself. Indeed he tried to execute himself and failed. It is not a black and white question. It is a question of humanity and a question of political intent.

In order to be playing the race card as Hitchens suggests, he would have to be joining an all-white golf club for the purpose of showing he is a racist. That's absurd.

I am not going to defend Clinton's actions, but anyone who thinks they are racist should be opposed to the death penalty in general. George W. Bush, whom Hitchens supported for President, executed 152 people. How many of those people do you think were black?

If Hitchens wants to claim that Clinton was callous, he has a case. If he wants to play the race card he is really stretching.