Posted on 12/19/2005 10:49:23 AM PST by doug from upland
The wretched excess of the "Save Tookie" campaign By John Leo
AP
Rapper Snoop Dogg during a rally for death-row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams last month.
"Tookie" Williams, put to death by lethal injection last week in California, was a "legend" who underwent "a meaningful martyrdom that sent a lasting message to the world," according to old-time leftist Tom Hayden, formerly Mr. Jane Fonda.
"Meaningful martyrdom"? What can Hayden be talking about? Martyrs die for a cause. Williams died for executing four unarmed people during two 1979 robberies, shooting a woman in the face, and laughing uncontrollably at the gurgling sounds a male victim made as he died in agony.
Opposing the death penalty, of course, means speaking out even for people like Williams. Still, the campaign for him has been wretched excess. His book editor and friend Barbara Becnel compared him to Rosa Parks. She plans a massive funeral as well as a memorial to him in South Africa. Several people nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize (anybody can nominate anybody, by the way).
Because California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency, Austrians took his name off the Arnold Schwarzenegger stadium near Graz, his hometown. A Christian political group suggested the stadium be named for Williams.
In the United States, all the usual suspects have been whipping up support and sympathy for Williams, including Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Susan Sarandon and Snoop Dogg.
So much attention to the murderer, almost none for those he killed. So let's remember them here: Albert Owens, a veteran and father of two young girls, shot at a 7-Eleven; and three members of an Asian-American family who ran the Brookhaven Motel: Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Yang and Yee-Chen Lin.
In a rare bit of commentary, William John Hagan of Canada Free Press wrote: "The mainstream media [have] ignored the realities of the Williams case in order to promote an anti-death-penalty agenda. To present this mass murderer as a martyr is an insult to victims everywhere."
Hayden said Williams was "railroaded," another fantasy. In the Owens killing, two accomplices said he did the shooting. In the motel case, Williams was picked up 10 minutes after the shooting of the three members of the Yang family. Shotgun shells at the motel were traced to a shotgun William purchased in 1974. Williams was living with a couple who testified that he told them details of the three murders that only the killer would know. They gave police the shotgun and said Williams kept it under his bed.
One man said Williams had bragged about killing three people who lived on Vermont Street, the location of the motel. The witness later said his testimony was coerced, but a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that claim.
A fellow inmate at Los Angeles County Jail testified that Williams drew up an elaborate escape plan, which involved blowing up a van carrying prisoners from jail to court and killing guards and inmates. Handwritten notes by Williams, which featured his habit of using stars to dot his I's, corroborated the story of the plan. The fellow inmate also testified that Williams had admitted the motel murders.
Williams has been riding the death-row celebrity train for some time. Jamie Foxx made a TV movie about him, "Redemption," referring to his decision to write children's books warning against the gang life. But the death-row killer who writes high-minded books to promote clemency is not a new phenomenon. In his column, Hagan discusses Williams' checkered career in prison, including two instances of throwing chemicals in the eyes of guards.
In denying clemency, Schwarzenegger pointed out that Williams had never apologized for the murders, or even admitted committing them. A farewell message from Williams contained the lyrics of "Strange Fruit," an anti-lynching song. So the unapologetic killer apparently had no clue about how he reached death row.
The media keep converting killers into celebrities deserving of our sympathy. Gary Gilmore, a Utah murderer, was the subject of an enormous book by Norman Mailer, and the ACLU furiously pursued his cause even after Gilmore said he wanted to die. Mailer turned the killer Jack Henry Abbott into a radical-chic celeb and a sought-after Manhattan dinner guest once Mailer and other prominent folk helped get him paroled. He grew suddenly less popular when he killed again, knifing a waiter to death.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted cop-killer, is a big name on the left, enlisted to speak on National Public Radio (at least until the protests got too loud) and invited to give major talks, including commencement addresses at two colleges. Now add Williams to the list: the Rosa Parks and Nobel candidate of unrepentant killers.
Tookie's dead, gonna stay dead, didn't get dead soon enough, but he's finally dead.
Somebody should make a list of these creeps.
Celebrities don't go to 7-11s or stay in motels, so they aren't worried about the Tookies of the world bothering them. It's just the little people like you and me that bear the brunt of monsters like Tookie, so why should they care?
was a "legend" who underwent "a meaningful martyrdom that sent a lasting message to the world,"
------Yeah and the messege was
"Don't murder a bunch of people and expect to live/clemency just because you have someone help you write a few books"
John Wayne Gacy did more for kids by dressing up as a clown for sick kids in hospitals. And I'm glad both he and Tookie are no more.
If these people had spent as much energy and money trying to save innocent unborn children, there would be 40 million more people in the U.S.
Railroaded?! He must be kidding. Twenty years of legal process, endless appeals is now railroading......
oh wait, I forgot something. If you use Amtrak as the frame of reference I guess 20 years would be considered railroading. I stand corrected.
"Tookie Williams Stadium." Beautiful, freaking beautiful. Everyone who goes to the bar there gets four free shots.
IS NOW OVER!!! We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcasting...
Oh...he knew alright. He just figured he could keep on scamming and fooling people. Well, the final arbitrator he stood before last week could not be fooled...and Tookie knew it.
As others have noted, Williams put himself on death row. He had 25 years worth of appeals.
His victims, on the other hand, died without benefit of jury or counsel.
If they're going to do this, they should consider other people ahead of Williams. Tookie "only" killed four people. Adolf Hiltler killed millions. Maybe they should be agitating for the Hitler Memorial Stadium. Adolf has Tookie beat on a blood-for-blood basis.
Geez, what's next for these people? Maybe the Josef Stalin Kulak Liquidation Memorial Medal? How about the Pol Pot Killing Fields Resettlement Honorarium?
They apparently going to try a similar strategy with Mumia.
Tookie's roasting in hell. Too bad Mumia's not there yet to wipe his a**.
It is not quite over yet. The funeral is Tuesday. Big celebration of his life, big stars, and jumbotron televisions outside will make for a lovely time in South Central Los Angeles.
Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Rev. Jesse Jackson are useful idiots to the Trust Fund, Red Diaper Baby Dopers of the Far Left. Truth is the biggest victims of the Thug and Gang culture is inner city Blacks. The Limo Liberals could give a shit about young minority Men. They are subhuman to them. They might as well live on Mars. Dogg is a former Crips member himself and former Criminal.
It is appalling what is being done to our minority Men at the behest of Liberals. They have destroyed the Black Family and then claimed to be their friends, Liars and hypocrites.
Jesse Jackson is an overpaid Ambulance Chaser cashing in on White Guilt. A massive fraud running a scam.
Shouldn't Asian Americans in California be outraged that their so called liberal friends care so little about the deaths of their people?
Jesse was also Father of the Year in Chicago.
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