The New York Review of Books: Death in Texas

To start the year thinking about death is nobody's pleasure. Sister Jean Prejean (remember "Dead Man Walking") has written this chronicle of Governor George W. Bush's record of clemency during his stint in Texas. Whether you are for or against the death penalty (I am against, as much of the rest of the civilized world), the cavalier and hypocritical way that W went about executing criminals (130 during his tenure) even shocked Tucker Carlson, that brattish conservative journalist on "Crossfire". Now W is appointing Alberto Gonsalez, his Texas Attorney General, to succeed Ashcroft as U.S. Attorney General, and position him to take Rehnquist's place on the Supreme Court. Mr. Gonsalez also became (in)famous for his memorandum describing the Geneva Convention's provisions against the torture of war prisoners as "quaint." Well, Sister Prejean describes the relationship between W and AG quite well. /href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670">The New York Review of Books: Death in Texas