Obama gets this one right

[jake]

Obama disagrees with high court on child rape case By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer


Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people who rape children, a crime he said states have the right to consider for capital punishment.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."

The court's 5-4 decision Wednesday struck down a Louisiana law that allows capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12, saying it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling spares the only people in the U.S. under sentence of death for that crime — two Louisiana men convicted of raping girls 5 and 8. It also invalidates laws on the books in five other states that allowed executions for child rape that does not result in the death of the victim.

Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said that had the court "said we want to constrain the abilities of states to do this to make sure that it's done in a careful and appropriate way, that would have been one thing. But it basically had a blanket prohibition and I disagree with that decision."

Obama has two daughters, ages 7 and 9.

He has long supported the death penalty while criticizing the way it is sometimes applied.

As an Illinois legislator, he helped rewrite the state's death penalty system to guard against innocent people being sentenced to die. The new safeguards included requiring police to videotape interrogations and giving the state Supreme Court more power to overturn unjust decisions.

He also opposed legislation making it easier to impose the death penalty for murders committed as part of gang activity. Obama argued the language was too vague and could be abused by authorities.

But Obama has never rejected the death penalty entirely. He supported death sentences for killing volunteers in community policing programs and for particularly cruel murders of elderly people.

"While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes — mass murder, the rape and murder of a child — so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment," he wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope."

[Crunchie]

Welcome to the fold Jake. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

[Hogzilla]

I just love it when I hear the right say how extreme left Obama is. Then we hear HIM say where he stands. It's never quite as extreme left as they would have you believe.

[rbain]

I think the right also like to point out his liberalism as a counter to claims that he is good at bi-partisanism. Working well across party lines is a very different thing than being a centrist. No one has claimed that he's a centrist (although he's probably to the right of me...) only that he works respectfully with his ideological opponents. You can favor liberal policies without being dogmatic, and you can disagree while still working together respectfully. It's just much more effective in the longterm.

-Rob

[Bear]

..."and you can disagree while still working together respectfully. It's just much more effective in the longterm".

Someone should tatoo that on OC's forehead

[OakParkSpartan]

..."and you can disagree while still working together respectfully. It's just much more effective in the longterm".

Someone should tatoo that on OC's forehead

So council can read it when they look at him?

[Bonster]

LOL!!!

[ZORBA]

You mean the qualified, or unqualified, council members?

[OakParkSpartan]

You mean the qualified, or unqualified, council members?

I think Ald. Weiner answered the qualifications question in a rather concise manner "I was elected".