Because of the newspaper’s high-profile stance against capital punishment, it was a little surprising to read today’s DMN editorial cheering on the swift dispatch of Osama bin Laden with almost-giddy praise. I mean, according to news reports, the president OK’d an operation to kill the terrorist leader without even giving the poor guy a fair trial! Some say the Al-Qaeda mastermind was the recipient of a Navy SEAL “double cap tap,” meaning two bullets in the head to ensure a rapid demise.
To be clear: President Obama (and his predecessors) and those brave SEALs deserve credit and kudos for hunting bin Laden down and delivering some old-fashioned, eye-for-an-eye justice. But it’s also instructive to learn that according to the Morning News standard, the “death penalty” (without a trial, yet) is good for certain people–namely, really evil tall bearded guys who are alleged to have offed lots of people–but bad for convicted murderers who’ve gone through multiple trials in the state of Texas. This will be interesting to recall the next time the paper starts haranguing supporters of capital punishment.
