Meanwhile, David Berkowitz Is Leaning Towards McCain

This is what political scientists call an "unhelpful endorsement":

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Comments

[Episiarch]

Son of Sidney?

[Elemenope]

I wanna know who Kodos supports.

[Homer Simpson]

Lousy Democrats!

[Pro Libertate]

Obama. The choice of murderers. Whoa.

[Untermensch]

Uhh, anyone notice that our favorite Mississippi pathologist was involved with this case? Sounds like he wasn't much of a factor, but he said that the victim was hit twenty-five times with a blunt object, which probably means he was killed with a single stab instead...

[Pro Libertate]

Have any murderers come out for McCain? He may need to address this gap.

[Elemenope]

For every prosecutor endorsement you get, you better make up for it with five murderer endorsements.

Otherwise I just can't trust you.

[Son of Sidney]

I am deeply hurt by your calling me a Obema [sic] hater! I am not. But I am a monster. I am the "Son of Sidney." I am a little brat. When father Sidney gets drunk he gets mean. He beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the beer factory. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sidney loves to drink beer. "Go out and campaign," commands father Sidney. Behind our house some rest. Mostly old - tortured and propagandized - their blood drained - just bones now. Papa Sidney keeps me locked in the Hanoi Hilton too. I can't get out but I look out the HH window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength then everybody else - programmed too campaign. However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all police: Shoot me first - shoot to kill or else keep out of my way or you will vote for Sidney! Papa Sidney is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks. "Ugh, me hoot, it hurts, sonny boy." I miss my pretty princess most of all. She's resting in our ladies house. But I'll see her soon. I am the "Monster" - "Beelzebub" - the chubby behemouth. I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game - tasty meat. The wemon of Obama are prettyist of all. It must be the Kool-Aid they drink. I live for the hunt - my life. Blood for papa. Mr. Walker, sir, I don't want to kill anymore. No sur, no more but I must, 'honor thy father.' I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong on earth. Return me to yahoos. To the people of Obama, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy election. May God bless you in this life and in the next. And for now I say goodbye and goodnight. Police: Let me haunt you with these words: I'll be back! I'll be back! To be interpreted as - bang bang bang, bank, bang - ugh!! Yours in murder, Mr. Monster

[Citizen Nothing]

Plus, his statement probably violated McCain-Feingold. Talk about a monster.

[Eyedol]

At least he thanked America and didn't say "God Damn America"

[joe]

Have any murderers come out for McCain?

Oh, man, fish in a barrel.

You take one this small, Fish and Game can suspend your license.

[TallDave]

Oh, come on, this is news?

Felons have been a reliable Dem constituency forever.

[Pro Libertate]

joe,

Has Manson made his endorsement yet?

[Kang]

The politics of failure have failed. We need to make them work again. Tomorrow, when you are sealed in the voting cubicle, vote for me, Senator Ka... Bob Dole.

[Kodos]

I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent blood bath.

[Er?k Boston, J.D.]

In related news, a man executed in VA yesterday decided that his last words would be:

"Tell the governor he just lost my vote."

[Mugabe]

Hey, Kodos is stealing my lines!

[scape]

Damn! That Vote or Die campaign is getting serious.

[SugarFree]

"We are merely exchanging long protein strings... how do you suggest we do it?"

[Franklin Harris]

Have any murderers come out for McCain?

You mean besides President Bush?

*rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week!

[Pro Libertate]

Convicted murderers, people.

[Er?k Boston, J.D.]

...good thing the week is over.

[ChrisO]

The late Mr. Bishop is reportedly planning to move to Chicago so that he may cast a vote for Sen. Obama.

[SugarFree]

McCain is endorsed by this charming fellow.

"Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."

[Naga Sadow]

Did anyone ever read "Freedonomics". One of the last chapters mentioned a poll done on convicted felons who couldn't vote. Bizarrely, something like 95% of those surveyed voted Democrat.

[The Prophet]

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: "Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?"
In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.
And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.
He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the
Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.
And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.
From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.
And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.
And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.
From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered "Hosanna" and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.
In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.
As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.
And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.
The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.
And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.
Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.
And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.
Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.
But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.
And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.
Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.
On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.
And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: "Yes, We Can."

[ed]

Executions we can believe in.

[SugarFree]

Naga,

Republicans can't run on a law and order platform for 40 years and then complain about losing the convicted felon vote.

[supermike]

Killers actually have a surprising amount of political pull:

http://www.snopes.com/legal/desalvo.asp

[Naga Sadow]

SugarFree,

I suspect that is why convicted felons are never going to get their right to vote re-instated.

[SugarFree]

Naga,

You can in some states. It's a piecemeal sort of thing. But, then again, if the people in jail were only the people I think should be in jail, who gives a flying fuck what they think?

[joe]

"...help the weak and elderly develop a new level of concern about their future."

Awesome, supermike.

[Malvolio]

Please, someone explain this to me:

He became only the eighth person put to death who did not directly kill his victim among the more than 1,100 executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976

Yes, there was a four-year hiatus in the death-penalty, more than 30 years ago. Why does every single newspaper article about an execution have to mention this (apparently) trivial and irrelevant fact?

Is it inchoate objection to capital punishment that makes the reporter want to suggest that the death penalty is a recent, and possibly temporary, innovation? Is it just ingrained habit? I mean, WTF?

[Lee]

I can't believe nobody caught the last line of the article.

"At trial, forensic pathologist Steven Hayne testified there were 23 injuries to the head, neck and hand produced by a blunt object."

Ah, the ever-reliable Dr. Hayne.

[thoreau]

Franklin Harris stole my line.

[joe]

Malvoilio,

Whenever the sports announcers talk about sack records, they say "...since they started keeping records in 1980"-something.

I think it's the same thing here. They can't say "ever" because 1) they don't have good records of all of the capital cases from 1834, and 2) they used to execute people for all kinds of crazy sh*t back then.

[Brian Courts]

You mean besides President Bush?

Franklin Harris stole my line.

Franklin and thoreau, as joe said at 11:07:

You take one this small, Fish and Game can suspend your license.

[dpsc]

Joe: And he's up... the executioner walks to the line and spits. Oh!, he steps out of the box. What a disappointment- the crowd here is not happy, not happy at all. The subject looks upset.

OK, the executioner is back in the box, and he looks like he is sizing up his opponent.. oh no, he stepped out of the box again. What is he doing? It's a strange execution day here in Fenway, Sox fans. The executioner can't seem to make up his mind. We were beginning to wonder if something was wrong with his needle hand, but it looks like he is going to deliver. He's back in the box, the crowd is hushed, and here's the windup... yes, I think he hit a vein with that one. Wow, what a stab! I think this game is over- that's gonna clinch it. I don't see the subject coming back from that!

[dpsc]

And the crowd is just going wild. Wow. I've never seen anything like this. Have you ever seen anything like this, Joe?

Joe: no, I haven't, Jim.

Wow, the fans are rushing the field. I really don't know how to describe this to the viewers at home, though I guess they can see it too, but.. all I can really say is that they are rushing the field. This is really unprecedented. I've never seen them like this before. This is the sort of spontaneous outpouring of emotion that... well, they're rushing the field. I've never seen anything like this before.

Wait! It looks like they might cremate him right there! Right there on the field, Joe! They are! They're taking apart the stadium here and they are burning his remains! They're setting fire to him. They are burning him. I don't know how else to put it except to say that fire is involved, and his remains. Wow, I've never seen anything like this before. Have you Joe?

Joe: No, but you know my daughter gave me this tie on my birthday which was just a week ago.

It's a nice tie- it's orange, like the flames licking at the subject's body. Oh wait, we have some action here- his ashes! They are holding them up in the air. I have to say, Joe, this is a historic moment at Fenway Park. I've been calling executions at Fenway since 2015, and I don't think I've ever seen this kind of enthusiasm before. The crowd here is going nuts, just nuts. I'm beginning to worry for my own safety- I hope the security team is on the ball, heh heh. Wow, to think I lived to see this day *chuckles*....

[joe]

LoL.

A grim Lol, but an LoL just the same.